Interview with Jessie Mayes, 1989

THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: Jesse Mayes
DATE: June 30, 1989
PLACE: Pampa, Texas
INTERVIEWERS: Bill and PFecious GFegg
./'""
BG: MF. Mayes, will you just say a sentence or two to
identify your voice on this tape?
M: I'm Jesse Mayes. I live at 1333 Starkweather in Pampa,
Texas.
BG: Thank you. Next we have our host, Mike.
A: This is Mike Andrews in Pampa and I'm enjoying all of
these interviews with these people who know so much about
our county.
BG: All right, Precious.
PG: Hello, glad to join in and find out about Pampa and
what the northeFn paFt of Texas is like.
BG: Well, now. You say you carne here about 60 years ago?
M: Yeah. The fiFst day of April 1929.
BG: Where was it that you were started? FFom where did you
come?
M: I was Faised about 72 OF 3 miles oveF in Oklahoma.
BG: So you ceFtainly were in this area.
M: Oh, yeah. I grew up there in a little town name of
Erick. Finished school there, finished high school, that's
MAYES
M: all, then I went to New York and stayed a couple of
years and come back and got married and come up here.
2
BG: I can't blame you. After being in New York two years
you were probably ready to come back here. You had already
finished school when you came here.
got married. Met your wife here?
So, you came here and
M: Oh, no. I married my school sweetheart. I'd known my
wife all along. No, we were married and had one little boy
when we came here. He was born November 24th in '28 and we
got here the first day of April so that'd have made him -
January, February, March - about 4 months old.
BG: What business did you get into when you first got
here?
M: I shined shoes in the barber shop - six-chair
barbershop - for 2 and a half years.
BG: And then ...
M: Then I worked - I tended bar, I worked in the oil field,
I roughnecked, I rig builded, I drilled on a rotary, I was a
truck driver, and that's about - then during the war I had a
little neighborhood grocery store. Then after the war I
went into business in the restaurant business. I have put
in two places, the Pennant Club and the Rathskeller. I put
in the Pennant Club in 1951 and the Rathskeller in '65.
BG: That's a slightly varied experience I'd say. What was
the town like when you first came here?
M: Well, where I'd been down in Oklahoma, you know, a
little bitty town like that, and I'd been away from the
hustle and bustle of New York for a little over a year,
MAYES 3
M: this was - see the depression started that year up east
but gradually come west. And this was a brand new oil field
and Pampa was a very bustling town. Business was good.
There was no unemployment. Of course, during prohibition
there was a lot of bootlegging, a lot of gambling.
PG: It sounded like an awful lot of hard work here, too.
M: Oh, boy. You can say that again.
A: A lot of your work was associated with the oil fields,
then.
M: Absolutely, absolutely, 90% of my business, even when I
was in business, were oil field people.
A: I guess that's what brought your big break, caused you
to break away from the shoe shining, was the coming of the
oil business.
M: Well, that's about all I knew how to do when I come here
was shine shoes. But, you know, it sounds like a menial job
but back in those days a shine was 1St and I made - a
six-chair barber shop, I made as much money as the barbers
did. In '29 and '30 I averaged about $100 a week. That was
good wages. In fact that was more than the boys working in
the oil fields made.
A: Looks t o me like you were the shrewd one in that line of
work.
PG: You stayed under cover and weren't out in the
elements.
M: But, when the depression hit, boy it was a different
proposition, I'll tell you that.
BG: Yeah, the institution of Hushpuppies, which I do not
MAYES 4
BG: have on today, made a big change in that too. The
barber shop I patronize used to have a shoe shine boy. They
don't now.
A: Do you remember any interesting experiences in your
restaurants that took place or - I believe you said you kept
bar for a while - can you think of any interesting episodes
that occurred in those places.
M: Well, a lot of them I don't guess they'd want to go down
in the archives! That's the heck of it!
PG: Was there much excitement when the first oil was
discovered?
M: Well, now the oil had been discovered about three years
when I got here. But, of course, the big drilling program
was after I come here. They hadn't drilled too many wells
but there is a high plateau right outside of town about two
miles. They had a beer joint out there they called the "y"
tavern. They had a gambling joint but at night this was way
before they had spacing, you know. They'd drill those
derrick tracks like they are in East Texas, you know.
Gladewater, back in there. But you could count 100 rigs
running between here and Lefors. This was in '29 and '30.
But when '31 carne, boy, she shut down and I don't guess there
was not over 15 wells drilled there in '32 and '33.
A: Well, did it go for a long time there without any more
drilling?
M: Oh, yes. It went practically-there wasn't a whole lot of
drilling until '35. It was just a hit and miss proposition.
There was a few. But oil got so cheap, you know. When I carne
MAYES 5
M: here oil was $2.75 a barrel. And by 1932 it was $.18.
BG: A barrel?
M: A barrel. Ten cents in East Texas. Ten cents a
barrel.
PG: Good heavens! What a difference!
BG: Well, of course, you have to look at the percentages,
too. What the rest of the country was like at that time. A
dollar a day was good wages during the depression but maybe
not out here. I don't know.
A: In your work with the oil field. What would you
consider one of the most dangerous jobs? Did you ever
have some dangerous work?
M: No. Of course, it was all dangerous. Everything was
above you, you know, all the machinery and stuff. But it
wasn't too dangerous. But, in the early days before they
unitized those draw works - I don't know whether you know
what I mean or not. They took two shafts and just put them
in one and put a cover over them, you know. And that
eliminated a lot of accidents.
PG: Would those rigs get caught with wind and knocked
over?
M: Oh, no. No, see, you put a guy wire. You dug what you
called a "dead man" at each corner, you know, and then you
had two guy wires, one about halfway up and one at the top
of the derrick it went out and you tied onto those and you
had a turn buckle where you could tighten them all the time.
No, the wind wasn't no trouble at all.
A: Were those early derricks made out of wood?
MAYES 6
M: The eaaly ones weae but theae was veay few heEe. They
had gone to steel. Back east, you know, of course - the Eig
buildeEs that built the steel deEEicks they had .woEked on
wooden deraicks.
Just a minute. TheEe was a fellow, man, come heae in
the '70s. He's working fOE the Houston post now. And he
worked the Pampa Daily News and he inteEviewed me theae for
about a month and when I Eetired, quit, sold out, I had a
waitress that kept all those, and I've got a scrapbook of
them.
BG: We appreciate it.
M: Between Texola and Benonine. And you know how they
named that Benonine?
A: How's that?
M: This was way back in the eaEly days. That's when Wade's
dad come out here. TheEe was no fences or nothing. These
cowboys would - it was raining this afternoon and had been
raining fOE several days like it has down there in East
Texas and they found an old deck of cards that the people
had been playing with. They had mud and everything on them,
you know, so they got them a poker game that afternoon. It
was raining and they got inside. So long about the middle
of the afternoon two old boys got in a big pot and stud
poker was all they played then. They both shoved in and
this old boy turned his hole card over and he said: A paiE
of nines, and that old boy looked at it and he said: Well,
that ain't no nine. The guy said: By God, it's been a nine,
so they named that town Benonine.
Some people come faom the east out heae, some aeal
MAYES 7
M: estate people, and they built about six blocks of
sidewalks there and they drew a plan, you know, and they
made that an incorporated city. The Rock Island went
through there. The train went from Tucumcari to Memphis,
Tennessee. Went right through it. And they give it where
it was coast to coast, you know, the railroad, and
that north fork of Red River that Randolph Morrissey
misjudged for the Red River. It come up, you know, and it
just heads right south of Pampa here. They said they give
that in there as being navigable. Lot of shipping on it.
And they went back east and they sold those lots in that
town. But you know, what made that town prosper, they built
a three-story school building the re . It was there for
years. But it's all crumbled now. All's left there is a
bank vault.
A: Is that in Texas?
M: Yeah, it's in Texas, right on the state line. It's a
little bit off of 1-40. You've got to know where it is.
But you can see that bank vault.
A: The history of the name of that's pretty neat.
M: Yeah, it sure is. Now, this here, I was going to
Chicago, I was going up t o see Notre Dame and southern Cal
play but we went to Chicago and stayed there and here's what
that same boy wrote of this. Now this here is practically
about all the o il fields. See, I don't have the memory that
I did then.
BG: That's strange.
PG: Well, you've got a good one.
MAYES 8
A: How did you get in with the Rathskeller, Mr. Mayes?
When I first came to Pampa 10 years ago, I heard that that
was one of the best places to eat in town and the story I
heard that one fellow ran the whole operation.
M: That was me.
A: And so, how did you get into that Rathskeller business?
M: Well, of course, the times will make you do what you
gotta do to survive, you know. So it just wound up that the
waitresses, they just got so undependable, why I just had to
- I just round up a nigger woman and a nigger boy, by golly,
and that's all there was. And I done good at it. I had it
- of course, when I first put it in times was pretty good
then. That's when they'd hit that field up between here and
Perryton.
A: Did you dream up all the menus and everything?
M: Oh, certainly. Absolutely.
A: Well, it must have been a big hit.
M: That was a one-man show. I even mopped the floor and
waxed it. I run that - but see, first, I had a credit club
out on the south side. You know where the tearoom is now?
Have you ever been out that way? On Brown Street? I put
that in in '51.
A: I see. Well, you are a survivor. You did whatever it
took to survive a nd you were successful at it. Had a lot of
grit and determination . Did the people back in those oil
days - I guess there were a lot of transients. People that
just carne and went.
M: Oh, worlds of them. Yeah. In the early days there was
MAYES 9
M: about as many bootlegging joints in Pampa as the~e was
businesses. Lot of people made a living selling that
homeb~ew . In fact I t~ied a little of that.
PG: Did they make it f~om the g~ains he~e?
M: That home b~ew? Su~e.
PG: Tell us about making it. That ' s anothe~ interesting
thing.
M: You want to know how to make homeb~ew?
PG: Yes.
M: Okay. I've made a million gallons of it. Well, you get
you a lO-gallon c~ock and fill it full of water . Then, they
got malt cans, malt you can buy it at any g~oce~y, any big
sto~e, you know. Have you eve~ d~ank home brew?
BG: No.
M: Neve~ did, huh. Well, all you do is just get you a can
of that malt. You put 10 pounds of suga~ in the~e, and just
be su~e you've got clean hands and clean arms and just
dissolve it in this wate~. You pou~ that can of malt in
the~e, and then put a cake of yeast on top of it, and you
ought to put it close to a stove in a wa~m place and it'll
sta~t fe~menting, you know , then you gotta skim it fou~ Olr
five times a day and du~ing the night fo~ about 5 o~ 6 days.
When she settles off, well, and it's best to peel up a few
potatoes and just slice them and th~ow them in the~e and
that'll clea~ it up. Those potatoes they pull all that
stuff to it, you know.
PG: Just like they do with onions in soup. They keep it
f~om being too strong and they pull some of the flavolr.
MAYES
M: Yeah, but that onion gives soup a flavor, too.
A: Well, that's true.
BG: You mean it was ready to drink after about .S days?
10
M: Oh, yeah. That's right. Everybody in the country had a
rubber hose. You just siphoned it, you know, and just put it
in one bottle to the other and you had a capper there. You
set a bottle in there and put a cap on it and shove it on
it.
BG: How about that.
PG: And it was ready to sell.
M: Oh, well, oh, I've drank a lot of it while I was
bottling it. But it needs to set about a week or ten days.
PG: Boy, that's a shorter time than wine making, that's for
sure.
M: Oh, you bet.
BG: I often wondered how the Rock Island Railroad got its
name ..
M: That I COUldn't tell you. You know, it was the Chicago
Rock Island & Pacific, CRI&P.
BG: So there must have been a Rock Island somewhere along
the line.
M: Well, it might have been from Rock Island, Illinois.
A: Can you think of any experiences out in the oil field
when the weather was bitter and times were really rough out
there because of the weather?
M: Can I! Boy, you tell 'ern. See, it took about, in those
days, of course everything, they got everything modern now,
you know. So it's a different ball game. See, back in those
days, when I worked in the oil field, you had to have
MAYES 11
M: plenty of gas and plenty of waterr. Because we had
thrree boilerrs, frrom 100 to 125 horrsepowerr boilerrs. That was
yourr power. You had to have - and they burrned about 40
barrels an hourr each. Oh, yeah, you know, back when they
firrst starrted up, it was rright afterr the Dust Bowl days.
You rrememberr the Dust Bowl. Wel~people can't really. Of
course, you've seen pictures, they've prrobably shown you
picturres. But, I've been out therre rrigging up, you know,
wherre you'rre getting rready to drrill. It took about thrree
days back in those days; all thrree crews to rrig it up.
But I've seen the time, see those derrrricks were 24
foot, the floor was 24 foot squarre. Then, yourr firrst girrt
was 10 foot, then they was 14 and 7 foot. Then of courrse
you had to wait forr the rrig builderrs. That was a different
prroposition. They built that themselves. They had the
first union that was in the Panhandle.
BG: Is that rright?
M: Oh, yeah, you bet yourr life they did, and it was a
strong one, too. Yeah, while the rrest of us made $7.00 a
day, they made $20.00 a nd $22.00 a day. But they earrned it.
But you talk about that weather. I've been out therre 18
below zero at night, on morrning tower.
A: Gosh. Kind of a lonesome feeling.
M: I remember - but I've seen i n those Dust Bowl days, when
we was rrigging up you couldn't see from one corner to the
other. Somebody standing over therre. And it'd stay that
way all day long. But you know, back then, that drilling
would come in spurts. It wasn't steady. You'd have to wait
MAYES 12
M: until these big companies, they'd make their budget and
they'd allow so much for drilling. And a l ot of times, the
last three months, the last quarter, why they'd have some
money left over then they'd hire a bunch and work was really
good there fo~ a few months. of course, the good hands all
wo~ked. A lot of them, you know, there was good and bad
hands in any business.
A: What would you say made you decide to stay in Pampa?
With business up and down in the oil situation - sort of.
M: I just liked the people here.
A: What was it about the people that you liked?
M: They're just good people.
A: Had a lot of determination.
M: Yeah, you know. And you just like them. Their word is
good. And I don't know, I wouldn't want to live nowhere
else. I never did have any idea of leaving town. Never
entered my mind. Of course, I've done a lot of traveling
since I've been here.
A: Well, that's what Mr. Duncan said yesterday. The man's
word was good.
M: Oh, you bet your life. It's still that way.
A: There are a lot of tales, you know, in history about law
over in Borger and the trouble the rangers coming in, and so
forth. What was the law situation over here in Pampa, was
it
M: No, we had a sheriff that was "on the take"; they had an
o ~ganizati on he~e. Absolutely. This fell ow , his name - he
was from Cleveland, Texas. His name was Graves. I guess
MAYES 13
M: Wade might have told you something about him. E. S.
Graves. He corne - I don't know how he ever got elected. Now
this-he got elected here I guess the first time .about 1920.
See, when I was a kid there at Erick, growing up, that's
where I started shining shoes there for a brother-in-law of
mine that had a barber shop. But, my mother died when I was 5
and a little town, it was a town of about 1200 then, and a
lot of people just took a liking to me and then every town
had a small baseball team, a sandlot team, you know. So, I
got about 12 or 13 years old why the old boy that got the
team he owned a gin and I'd known him all my life, so I just
went along with the team jerking bats, you know, bat boy.
We corne to Pampa several times. The first time that I
was ever arrested was right here i n Pampa. (laughter) In 1923.
That hotel. It was a 3-story hotel right across from the
depot there, the old Liberty Hotel. And the ma n-I never did -
Texas had funny laws then,a lot funnier than Oklahoma.
(laughter) And this deputy he just looked up there and saw
there was 5 of us shooting dice, all from Erick, the baseball
team a nd me, the mascot, and he just looked up there a nd saw
us shooting dice, he didn't say nothing until the next
morn ing the fellow that had the ball club he corne up a nd woke
up several of us sleeping in one big room up there.
The old boy's name was Corneliason. He shook him and
said, Corny they caught you all last night. Well, he didn't
know nothing about it. And he said well caught you doing
what, he was still half asleep. Shooting dice. So I heard
MAYES 14
M: him, so I jumped up and I said: Sam, - well that was in
'23, I was 16 then, And I said, Well, me and Bald Stubbs
and a fellow name of Evans, Lester Evans, he drove one of
the cars that we traveled in, Model T Ford Touring. So Sam
he goes down and he goes over to the City Hall, then, and
that City Hall was right over there where the Snyder Hotel
Apartments are now. And paid the fine but I told him there
was just two of us shooting, of course, there was 5 of us
shooting. We all chipped in on the fine, it cost us $7.00
apiece.
PG: Oh, goodness, and you were underage?
M: Oh, yes. But getting back to this fellow Graves. He
was the most peculiar fellow that - did you ever see a shoe
boot? That's what he wore all the time.
BG: Congress Gators I think they called them.
M: They only corne to here, but they looked, built just like
a boot and you lace them up. I used to shine his boots all
the time. But he was - boy, he ruled it with an iron hand
but he was a man without a whole lot of courage, I'll tell
you that. You've heard of Lone Wolf Gonzales haven't you?
A: I don't believe I have.
M: Never did - he was a Texas Ranger. He was a half breed
and he was the bull of the woods. When he corne somewhere
everybody was afraid of him. Everybody knew exactly what
had happened, you know. I n fact, right at the end of his
career, they caught 40, they indicted 40 of them in Federal
Court for conspiracy to break the Volstead Act.
A: The sheriffs?
M: Oh, yeah, they got him. They had 40 of them.
MAYES 15
A: Who was this Texas Ranger you mentioned?
M: His name was Lone Wolf Gonzales. When you talk to Ruth,
Ruth could tell you about him. Of course, Ruth . is 5 years
younger than I am.
A: Well, did this Lone Wolf Gonzales - was he up in this
part of the state?
M: He just come up occasionally, but when he'd walk in the
courthouse this old Graves they tell me, I didn't see it,
but he just got so nervous he just grabbed his hat and he
got - he drove a Hudson coupe but he would go somewhere.
But he was on the take, but there was a fellow by the name
of - that's here I'm getting bad at - is remembering names.
A: Don't feel bad about it, we're that way too.
BG: Already.
M: Really. Well, anyway, anybody that sold a bottle of
homebrew you paid him so much a month. And nobody brought
any whiskey in here, he brought it all in. You went and
bought it from him. And then take it out to the joints and
sell it by the pint or the quart but you bought it from him
in those three-gallon cases, you know, six half gallons.
A: When did the law straighten up its act around here and
stop doing things on the take and so forth? Was there
anything that caused that?
M: I'll tell you what. No, it just gradually kept a voting
them out. It was pretty bad up to '36. It really was.
A: Well, when the Rangers came over to Borger there, did
it have any influence?
MAYES 16
M: Well, I wasn't heEe then. That was befoEe I come heEe.
But now I was he~e when they killed the dist~ict attorney.
A: Now we haven't heaEd about that.
M: Johnny Holmes killed the district attorney. See that's
a different dist~ict than we're in. But they shot him I
think in his back yard. I never did see him. But it come
out - the Pampa paper come out with an extra.
BG: What was Johnny Holmes' problem?
M: A heavy prosecuto~. And boy, well I guess , I bette~ let
- Ruth will want to tell you about the big bank robbery.
A: Well, you may give it a different dimension.
M: Well, no, Ruth was here. I wasn't here. But I tell you -
the only thing, don't mention this to him now . He 's gonna
tell you how much they got , but he was wrong because for
years, see that barber shop where I wo~ked, they had ex­panded
that First National Bank about I guess 50 feet from
what it originally was. About 57 feet. But there was just
a record between the barbe~ shop where I worked and the
bank. And I'd go in there to get change and stuff. I neve~
had much money in the bank then. But fo~ years they had to
hang every teller, but they had a photostatic copy of the
bank that the insurance company give them and there was
$32,000. Now I don't know what - but no need of correcting
him , but he was going to school over at Kingsville, and they
claimed he rode a horse over here. I'm s'Jre he'd come over
to get something. But he knew this fellow Graves that was
sheriff; he was sheriff then. Then there was - you never
heard of the robbery?
MAYES
A: Yeah, I've heard of the robbery.
M: You know, that house is still right out there now.
a brick house about 4 miles west of town.
A: They stayed there for a night, didn't they?
17
It's
M: No, they stayed in the dark. And then they went to
Borger. And I knew a fellow personally that saw them divide
the money over there that night. The five of them.
A: Well, some people were killed over there, weren't they?
M: There was a lot of people killed over there.
A: I mean in connection with that bank robbery?
M: No. No, they never did catch but just one of those
guys. When they caught him, well back then he had
consumption they called it, TB, you know, and so they just -
the name was Ace Pendleton. Matthew Kimes and his brother.
He was the ring leader. You've heard of them, I know.
Kimes - he was about the same time of Pretty Boy Floyd.
A: Oh, I see.
M: They was from over there in southeastern Oklahoma.
Matt
A: Well, back in the earlier times here, what were some of
the things people d id for entertainment around here?
M: Have you been in the Rathskeller?
A: Yeah, I've been in there several times.
M: Well, that's one-fourth of the Plamore, that 50 x 40,
the Ratheskeller. And the Plamore was 200 x 160. Right
there on the corner. That was a Bucket of Blood. They had
wrestling there, they had fighting then, you know, had
boxing, but every Saturday night they had a big dance
there. Across the street on both sides they wasn't no
MAYES 18
M: buildings. None of those buildings was there. Just
weeds, tumbleweeds growing up, you know, and that's whe~e
the boys would go over the~e and fight it out.
PG: Did they have to pay to watch them, or .••
M: Oh, no, no. Oh, you mean the fights? Yeah they had a
ring, you bet your life, and they'd fill that place. The~e
was two theaters he~e then, back then, but outside of that
Plamore they could even come over, they come over from
Amarillo to dance there on Saturday night.
PG: Good heavens, must have had a good band .
M: Did have. They had some good bands, they really did.
A: You mean they had boxing in the same building the re , the
Plamore, where they had dances?
M: Correct, correct.
A: Just sort of a general ...
M: Correct, you could dismount that ring and put it off to
the side and then they had this where you danced they had
this roped off, too. You had to pay so much to get in there
and dance.
A: We~e these boxers and wrestlers , were they mostly
brought in from other places?
M: Absolutely. Yeah , there was two or three raised here.
Very few. But they were brought in. Cal Farley wrestled
over he~e.
M: Oh, yeah, you know that set up Boys' Ranch.
BG: Oh, yeah. Cal Farley. I knew that name was familiar.
A: Was he a pretty good ...
M: World's Champ ion. Cal Farley was. He wrestled twice in
Amarillo for the world's championship. You know, he was
MAYES 19
M: champion of the AEF dUFing WOFld WaF I.
A: I see.
BG: That was when they did rreal wrrestling, not .this show
business type.
M: That's rright. And that guy, he wFestled a guy by the
name of Jack Wolf fOF the champion. You know, it wasn't no
showoff then, it was rreal wrrestling. But he wasn't a big
man like they got. He was about YOUF size.
PG: He just knew how to catch the otherr fellow off guard.
BG: The fights you mentioned awhile ago acrross the strreet,
they werre just prrivate fights, people at the dance orr the
barr? They'd go outside.
M: Yeah. Absolutely. They always had a bouncerr, he'd
bounce them out and they'd go oveF there in those
tumbleweeds and fight it out.
PG: Well, did the girrls come herre i n like busses or carrs orr
wagons to the dance?
M: Oh, no, they lived heFe.
PG: These were all local girrls.
M: Absolutely. Boy, they couldn't wait till Saturday night
to get there. The Fe wasn't no shortage of giFls. None -
never - absolutely.
Last night's paperr. I noticed where an old boy, he was
bOFn i n 1901, had a stroke, but I remember him, he and his
wife worrked down theFe taking up tickets and they went
together I guess 20 years before they ever got maFried.
PG: Boy, that's the good old days.
M: When I saw that that's the fi~st thing I thought of.
Him being down there at the Plamorre.
MAYES 20
A: Well, say on a night when there was boxing at the
Plamore, just off the top of your head, about how many
people would you say would be watching a match down there.
M: I'd say there'd be at least 500.
A: Is that right!
M: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
A: Boy, that was a big crowd.
M: You ain't a kiddin'.
PG: That was standing room only then with that many
people.
M: They had an old boy by the name of Joe Kopeck. Now was
one of the first that went to putting on that show you know.
And he was rough as the dickens. He danced one night.
There was a lot of transients. I mean there was a ton of
t ransients. This old boy come in the barber shop. We had a
barber there - his name was Clarence Holman - and he wasn't
much of a barber. He was a gambler. He'd sit up all night
long and play poker, you know, and then he'd doze off during
the day there in the barber shop.
But one of these transients come in there, the only
time I ever saw him. And the man that owned the barber
shop, the shine stand was right in front, right there right
in front of the north part of the bank of the building. And
the man that owned it)the cash register was right there
behind the first chair.
So this old boy, this guy come in and this barber
shaved him. His name was Clarence Holman. And so he had
seen the fights, this wrestling match the night before, and
MAYES 21
M: this Kopeck. We had a blacksmith here in town, he got
killed heEe. He tUEned into a bootlegger. And he had
wrestled that guy and he was a good one. He had wrestled
him the night before and this stranger got him to shave - I
guess his EaZOE was dull and so he cOme up to pay him.
Shaves was a quarter you know. And he went to give the owner
a quarter and he says I didn't know you had Kopecki working
here. So everybody, we called him Kopecki from then on, the
barber. (laughter)
But, you wanted to know about - I'll tell you about
this oil - about the oil fields, that's what you wanted to '
know. See , what CEeateS a boom is a lot of drilling. See ,
it isn't the people that drilled them. BefoEe you see when
you stake a location, your rig builders then went out and
they dug a cellar, 6 X 6 X 6 . Then , they built the derrick.
Then the Eoustabouts that wOEked for the company that the
contractor was going to drill the well for, they had to lay
a gas line and a water line up there. You had to have all
that. Then you moved the rig i n . No, before you moved the
rig in you dig a pit. See you have to circulate that mUd.
Have you ever been around a drilling rig?
A: Not that close; not while they are working.
M: Well, you see you ' ve got a pit full of mud. You can
start out with clear water, but then you l e t sometimes the
formation if it will let you do it, you don't have to have
no mud until you get on down , but sometimes you don't. You
got to mix mud, pour it in there and you make gum and yOU
gum it up, you know, and you take the mud out o f that pit.
MAYES 22
M: But anyway, back in those days there was a lot of
mules; you used a lot of horses and mules; and they had
these fresnoes to dig these slush pits, they called them.
Then, every time you rigged up we had to come in and go get
in that pit after they'd dug it, put a partition, one
partition in there to stop the shale. You get a lot of
dirty shale down on down as you go lower -
A: In other words, just mud-(to back up the people that are
listening to this tape.) The drag that you are talking
about, what did you call that?
M: A fresno, that's what you dig it with.
A: In other words, a scoop that the mules pulled.
M: That's right.
A: And the mud, now, is used to bring up the stuff the
drill bit dislodged. You pump the fresh mud down -
M: Correct.
A: And the bits and pieces come back out.
M: That's what you call circulation.
A: And now that's why you are saying they needed a divider
down there in the pit - to keep the dirty mud from the good
mUd.
M: Right. But it's done so different now you wouldn't
realize it.
BG : Well , we don't.worry about now. We were worried.
M: All right. Then the crews come in. They take fresh
lumber. They wasted a lot of lumber back in those days.
They 'd take fresh lumber and go out and build a suction
rack. See , you got a big mud pile setting right on the edge
MAYES 23
M: of the pit which is a ve~y cent~al pa~t of the
d~illing, I'll tell you that. But it's got a section that
goes out in there that goes flat and then goes down so you
build a rack and put a rope around it wherre you can raise
that section, orr lowe~ it as you drrill, you know.
All rright, then they piled up a lot of dirt, a lot of
dirt was behind one side of the derrick, you set your engine
on that. The engine was about as long as that divan OVer
there. A steam engine. Every thing run -
A: About 9 feet.
M: You set it down. Then you pull the drraw worrks forrward
but beforre that you've got to space. They leave 3-inch
boa~ds - the rrig builderrs they leave 3-inch boards just on
that 24 foot derrick, 24-foot square, you know, the floor of
it. But, the roughnecks come in and they saw it to split it
t o where you can - you've got t o set your rotor table i n
there.
See, and over to one side you dig a rat hole - what
they called a rat hole - and you put a pipe in therre. The
purrpose of that ~at hole is - after you put your drill stem
in the hole you've got what you call a kelly. It's square
and you put a rotor table i n there. Set in your rotor table
and then you put yourr chains and everything on and you put a
big standpipe in the COrner of the derrick and there is a
hose that goes f~om that stand pipe on top - you see, then
you have tra ve ling blocks that pulls that up and down, you
know. Got six lines in it and on top there is a crOwn and
you gotta take one line through your t raveling block and
MAYES 24
M: pull it over the crown block until you get six lines in
theNe and then that's what your draw works, that's what they
do is control this pulling that pipe up and down.
And then, of couNse, you put a chain on theNe for YOUN
rotoE table. See that's got to tUEn aEound fON YOUE dEill.
And then after you get all - in the meantime, the firemen
they are rigging up these thEee boileEs. You get those
Eigged up and the n , of course, the Eigmen they dig the dead
men to put the guy lines on to hold that, keep that deEEick
from blowing over. It's up there pEetty good. But then you
gotta dig a dead man behind the engine. TheEe is a cross
bar there that you put a chain around it about an 8 x 10 and
you bUEY it. But you got a tUEn buckle on it wheEe you can
tie -
BG: The 8 x 10 he just descEibed is a dead man because it
is bUEied crossways to the guy wiEe at 90 degEees to it's so
that buried in the ground that guy wiEe is held in place.
That's the dead man that he's been taking about.
A: About how deep are those dead men?
M: About 6 feet. But you see, back in those days you had
those mule teams. See they had to corne in and dig the pit.
The Eig builders had to corne i n and build the deErick, and
they had to dig the cellar. Well, then they usually, mostly
back in those days, you know, they had to build an auxiliary
tank theEe. A lot of that was built with cypress wood back
i n the early days. Before they went to steel.
PG: WheEe did they get cypress wood from?
M: Louisiana. Lou isiana and Florida is the only two states
MAYES
M: where you can get cypress.
A: Wonder why cypress was
M: Have you ever been to New Orleans?
A: No.
25
M: You haven't? They have still got, they got sewer lines
made out of cypress down there.
A: Is that right!
M: Yessiree, boy.
years.
It's been there I guess two hundred
A:
M:
A:
It doesn't rot?
No. It never rots.
Well, I'll be.
M: There are a lot of cypress tanks still. You go out in
the oil field here you can see some still sitting out there.
A: That's something.
BG: You gotta keep them wet, though. Well, any lumber,
sure.
A: Well, about how deep were you striking oil in those
days?
M: It was around 3200 was the deepest. It varied in the
elevation. See the elevation here in Pampa is 3264, right
out here on Hobart and where that Amarillo, right there is
where they take it. Of course, when you go to Dumas, you
see Dumas is about 4000. Amarillo is 3900.
A: I see.
M: And Lefors, when you go to, well you, see you jump off
1000 feet going from here to Lefors. Now that production
down there at Kellerville, that stuff, see it's only from 23
MAYES 26
M: to 2500.
A: I see.
M: But there are some wells here in the city limits. Have
you been out on Price Road and gone north of the cemetery,
Memory Ga1Tdens?
A: Yes.
M: You know that that - you sawall that junk there
when you turned off of Amarillo, didn't you?
A: Yeah.
M: Well, there's about eight oil wells right in there.
A: Is that right?
M: Sure.
A: My gosh.
M: Yeah. And I worked on several of those. Continental
drilled those, Continental Oil Company.
A: I see. Well now, after, when you have a lot of oil
activity and then things started slowing down, and maybe
there were layoffs and what have you, what sort of spirit
did the people of Pampa have? Did they get the blues pretty
badly or did they always think that something else was
gonna come --
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 1, 45 MINUTES
MAYES 27
SIDE 2.
BG: Had to turn the tape over. ME Mayes is still going
strong. As long as he's willing to talk, I guess we'll
listenl
A: After, of course, in addition to oil I guess there has
been farming and cattle raising around here that helped even
out the economy when oil was bad.
M: You bet your life. You couldn't do without that.
PG: Well, did your Rathskeller keep going all through the
depression?
M: Oh, I didn't put it in until after - during the
depression I was, pardon me (Phone ringing).
M: Sure, absolutely.
A: That Rathskeller are you tied in with it now?
M: Not a bit.
A: You sell electric .•.
M: That's right.
BG: Do you approve of the way they are run n ing it now?
M: Yes, sir. I really do. That old girl - well, you gotta
be able to - the public makes you - you are either a failure
or not. It's the general public tells you. You don't do it
yourself. You've got to give them something good, service.
Of course, down there, you know, why me running it
myself everybody got their salad, got their own drinks, got
their own bread and butter, and then I had about four things
every day on the menu and she still does. It don't take but
a minute. I had everything ready, you know. I'd selrve
about 100 or 150 there in a couple of hOUlrs. I worked till
MAYES 28
M: I was 75 there.
PG: Mr. Mayes, my husband grew up in Atlanta and got to see
a lot of the baseball with his daddy and I see from these
newspaper clippings that you sure like baseball}too.
M: Oh, shoot, I say I do. That lady I was talking - did
you ever hear of John Jenkins? You don't foll ow football?
No, where did you go to school?
A: Well, in college I went to different colleges. But I
went t o the University of Texas for a while, and SuI Ross
out at Alpine, and then West Texas State. But I went, in
high school I was down in San Antonio, at Jefferson High.
M: That's where Charlie Parker went to school.
A: Right. He was a track star and also Kyle Rote
graduated from Jefferson.
M: Yeah, that's right.
A: Pat Toler, who played for Texas.
M: Yeah. See, I had a boy that played at the University of
Texas. He graduated in '52.
A: Is that right!
M: Sure.
A: What position did he play?
M: He was a half back.
A: I think I may remember that.
M: They called him Red Mayes.
A: How about that! Did he go on to the pros?
M: Just for about 6 or 8 games with the Rams, and he
couldn't make it and they let him go.
A: I bet you are proud of him.
MAYES 29
M: Oh yeah.
A: Did you go down and watch him play some?
M: I went to see eve~y game that they played. .He played in
that All-Starr game in Chicago. I went up the~e. But he was
playing with the Rams then. That's when Bud Mc Fadden - he
played in that game with the college all-sta~s. You ~ememberr
when they used to have that game. See that A~ch Warrd, that
newspaperr man in Chicago.
A: Yeah. Who was coaching at Texas at that time?
M: The wo~st one they ever had, Ed Prrice.
A: Ed prrice. Do you know that the yearr I went to the
University of Texas he was the coach therre. An then, I
believe they brrought in Darrrrell Royal.
M: That's ~ight. That's exactly rright.
What yea~ werre you bo~n?
A: '34.
M: Yeah, he's fourr yea~s older than you. Well, this lady I
was talking/to her boy, he's the offensive coo~dinatorr fo~
the Univerrsity of Houston now . And when they had that team,
the Houston Gamb l errs , you know, that had that rrun and shoot
offense, well he rrun that, you know, he's a coach. His name
is John Jenkins.
And this lady she owned this house down herre. She and
he~ husband separrated and she was scarred to death that the
insurance company - it's been about 6 or 7 yearrs ago we had
a big hail he~e and everybody put on a new rroof and they
paid her the insurrance and she had peoples, rrenters in the~e
and they talked her out of it and so she has been visiting
John down at Houston and somebody told her
MAYES 30
M: they had a big hail he~e and that's what she was
wanting to know, whethe~ they had had a hail there. But my
boy run on the ~elay team with Cha~lie Panker. ,When he was
a senior. When Charlie was a senior.
A: Well your boy must be quite an athlete.
M: He was then, yes.
A: Well, could you tell us something about the old Pampa
Oile~s? About how many yea~s we~e they organized in Pampa?
10 or 15 years?
M: Well, let's see now. They started in - you see, they
had a - Dan Singen Oil and Refining Company, they built that
gnandstand down there. You know, it's ~ight across from
that Pennant Club that I had. I had 900 pennants in that
place. I've got a picture somewhere but I don't know whene
it is. But they stanted in '33. You know, Dan Singen had a
refineny out here at the edge of town . It burned - when they
was gonna unionize it - these Dan Singens diggers was used
out o f Tulsa, you know, and I don't blame them a bit. If
they was gonna unionize it and they just shut it down. Just
like the Schlitz Brewing Company did. But that's the best
team we've even had. In '34, it started in '33, '34, '35,
'36, and then is when they started that West Texas-New
Mexico League. But the Pampa Oilens, you see, that belonged
- first they called them the Roadrunners. That was the logo
of the Dan Singer Refinery. The Roadnunnens. And then,
aften they went into the league, West Texas-New Mexico
League, they changed it to the Pampa Oilens.
MAYES
A: Who were some of the other teams they played back in
those days?
M: In the League?
A: Yeah.
31
M: They - in New Mexico it was Clovis and Albuquerque. In
Texas there was Amarillo, Borger and Pampa, Lubbock, La
Mesa, and Abilene. Isn't that eight?
A: I believe that's pretty close to it.
M: That was the League, yeah.
A: Well, did Pampa ever win in that League; that Texas, New
Mexico?
M: Pampa won it one year. One year and they went down t o
East Texas and played a team for the championship of the
East Texas League. What in the world was the name of that
dad-burn town?
A: Well, did any of the players in Pampa go on up to the
major leagues?
M: We had one boy, Warren Hacker, went to the Chicago Cubs,
a pitcher. Then Lubbock had a fellow name of Serena that
went up as a shortstop. And, the fellow that owned the team
in Ama ri llo , Bob Seeds, he had been up, you know. He played
with the Yankees and the Giants both.
A: I guess they had pretty big crowds out there t o see
those games.
M: Oh , absolutely. Boy, you tell them.
A: I kinda hate to see minor league baseball in cities the
size of Pampa go by the wayside. Because I think they were
great.
MAYES 32
M: Do you know anything about baseball? Did you ever hear
of Aarron Ward?
A: No, I don't remember him.
M: Well, he played second base forr the Yankees in '21, '22
and '23, when the Yankees and the Giants played in the World
Series those three years. I saw my first Worrld Serries in
'26, between the Yankees and the Cardinals. That's when
Hornsby - he was playing second base.
PG: Is that what he - I couldn't rremember what he played.
M: Second base. He was the greatest hitter that ever
lived. He hit over .400 thrree straight years. Hit .424 one
year, in 1924.
A: His left-hand batting average was way up there, .340 orr
.350.
M: You know what Ty Cobb's was? .367 for 23 years.
A: Well, what do you think? Was it television that brought
about the downfall of say Pampa's team?
M: NO. Well, see, television didn't come in here until
about '53. I guess that was - but these games were never
televised. But television did, oh yeah, television ruined a
lot of things. You know, when I had that Pennant Club I
stayed open until midnight every night. Absolutely. And,
some of my best business was after the ball games and after
the beer joints would close.
A: I can tell you are quite a sports fan. What's your
favorite team nowadays in the major leagues?
M: In baseball?
A: Yeah.
MAYES 33
M: Oh, I like the Cubs 'cause we see them everry day, but I
like those Astros too.
PG: Oh, boy, they're trying. If they can just .hold on.
But they gotta come back up again.
A: Did you ever see a nO-hitterr pitched?
M: Neverr.
A: I thought maybe locally, in Pampa or something.
M: No, I've seen them pretty close, but I neverr did.
A: Old Nolan Ryan keeps flirting with it.
M: Boy, hasn't he. The last thrree times he had them up
u ntil the 7th inning, by gosh.
A: Well, some of those Pampa ball players settled in Pampa,
didn't they?
M: Yeah. There's one. Let's see, now. Joe Fortin and
Frrank Kemperr . They still live herre, but I can't think of
any.
A: The insurance man, Cal Secrist?
M: Yeah, you're thinking about that first baseman forr the
Univerrsity of Texas. His name is Newt. He come along right
at the very end. And he was a good catcher, too. Had a rreal
good arm. But one of the best players was in that league,
was raised overr herre at White Deerr, lived here. His name
was Groverr Seitz. There's a ton of them here. Here in
Mobeetie, and Wheeler, and Miami. They'rre allover this
Panhand le.
A: Well, in that old Texas-New Mexico League, would you say
pampa's biggest rival was Borger as it has always seemed?
M: Borger and Lubbock. Borgerr and Pampa, they really had a
MAYES 34
M: rivalry. Because they had a fellow come from Hollis,
Oklahoma , down here by the name of Gordon Elk. He's dead
now. Of course, Grover Seitz is dead. He got killed over
at Pullman Switch at Amarillo going to - He and his wife and
another fellow and his wife were going to the Golden Gloves
fight in Amarillo, and that train out there - you've driven
that road, you know, out there just before you get on 1-40,
on 1912, there's a railroad track, you know, going by there.
Well, he got killed a little bit north of there. I mean
west of there. Just hit that train, it killed all four of
them instantly. Just like you had dropped them 10,000 feet
from the air.
A: Well, at any of those ball games, baseball or football,
or whatever, between Borger and Pampa, did you ever see any
fights break out along the sidelines or up in the stands?
M: No, not necessarily. No, the biggest rivalry in the
world was between Pampa and Amarillo. Back in the '30s. In
football. High school. Amarillo only had one high school.
The Golden Sand Storm. And Pampa was the Pampa Harvesters .
See, in 1929, Pampa, there was only two classes, A and B.
And we was Class B. We was in the class with Perryton, and
Hereford and Memphis, and Childress and Vernon. We
played all of them, you know. But in 1930 we went to Class
A. And we played Amarillo . Blair Cherry was coaching
Amarillo . See , he won a state championship in '34, '35, and
' 36. Then he went to the university .
But we played - oh, when Pampa played Lubbock or
Amarillo, at one time we played Port Arthur. Run a special
MAYES 35
M: train from Pampa down there in 1938. And we were just
getting over the depression then. But between here and
Amarillo we'd rrun a special train over there and they'd run
one over here. Just for the game. See, the roads wasn't
like they are now. Of course, then, the Amarillo stadium
was right off the rrailroad track. That train would put on
the side track and you could walk - Butler Field is what it
was. They've torn it down now but it's just as if you go in
on NE 8th and keep going. That's where all the bad places
are now, you know.
Well, you see a bunch of elevators, Butler Field was
right over there by it. But I mean for years they only had
one rest room out there. And after that game was over, I
don't know where the ladies went. But after that game was
over, I'm not kidding, there'd be a stack of one-half pint
whiskey bottles. People would go out there and kill it and
just throw the bottle down and leave it. But they beat us
2-0 over there in the worst rainstorm you've ever seen.
A: Two to nothing, a safety.
M: Yeah, 2-0.
A: well, I guess that was quite an event.
M: Oh, man, have you seen an annual of that year?
A: No, I haven't.
M: I've got one. Let me show it to you.
Here, that's the year.
A: How about that. It's a hit.
M: You want one of those? That's where I went to school.
PG: Oh, yessir. I'd love to have one. Do you have enough
MAYES 36
PG: to keep one for yourself? Oh, that's a score sheet.
My brother in Austin has kept scores of all the Texas
games.
M: Well, I kept score on that game there. That was in
1927. At the Polo Grounds. It don't even exist any more.
A: No. New York Giants I guess were there. Was that the
Giants or the Dodgers at the Polo Grounds.
the Giants.
I guess it was
PG: This was Oklahoma. F. F. Andrews, Instructor in
History and Civics.
A: This Otis Mitchell, he went on to coach North Texas
State.
PG: Oh, did he?
A: Yeah. He was a well-known coach there at North Texas
State.
M: I was in Atlanta last fall. I was going t o Savannah, I
caught a plane there and went t o Savannah. I had a niece
living in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
A: I notice Otis Mitchell was the coach then. Of course he
went on to North Texas State and was there for years.
M: See, he went to Marshall from here.
BG: We have been making you talk for a l ong time.
M: Is there anything about the oil field that I left out
that you want to know?
A: I think you gave us about the most basic.
PG: Oh, it really was a marvelous description.
M: See, you take - when you got a hundred rigs running and
all the headquarters and see they are building those
MAYES 37
M: derricks and tearing down every day. Every time you
finish they gotta tear that derrick down and move it and
rebuild it, you know. And back in those days they had a
special crew that run the casing when it come time to run
the casing.
BG: That's where most of the hand accidents occurred,
wasn't it?
M: Well, no, that's when you are building the derrick.
Foot adz they called them. Did you ever see a foot adz?
BG: Not unless you are talking about the carpenter tool
that you swing like a hoe to trim a piece of lumber.
M: That's it. That's a foot adz. Those rig builders they
kept them as sharp as a razor. I'm not kidding you. I've
got one out in the garage.
BG: Haven't used it much recently, I don't suppose.
M: No. I've got a cat head out there too. You've probably
never seen a cat head.
PG: What's it used for?
M: A cat head is on your draw works that I was talking
about, you know, and it's on the outside. It is just a
round piece of steel like that and when you build the
derrick and they put a crown block up there you take an inch
hemp rope and go up there and put it over a pulley and you
keep one end by the cat head and one end tied some other
place and when you want to pick up s omething that is real
heavy to tie to this cat line then you wrap the other end
around this cat head that's running all the time. And you
got all the power in the world. You can lift anything.
MAYES 38
BG: You pull back on yourr end of the rrope and it winds up
and if you don't want to pUlljyou slack it off until it just
- the drrums arre rrevolving inside . I like yourr name betterr.
In the navy we call it, and I don't know what they call it
these days, niggerr head. Same thing.
end of a shaft that you use -
It's a drrum on the
M: Oh , yes, they used it forr loading. All boats have got
them.
BG: Maybe they call them cat heads on boarrd now.
A: This annual is fascinating he rre.
BG: which year annual is that, Mike?
A: It is 1931.
PG: And '25.
A: We saw Jesse's picturre in herre.
PG: Yes, we saw yourr picturre with currly hair in the '25
annual frrom Errick, Oklahoma.
Yea, I grraduated from high school in about '31 .
M: You did. By golly , you'rre no sprring chicken arre you.
PG: Not quite.
BG : Well, I've alrready been back forr my naval academy class
50th rreunion. Two morre yearrs I go back forr the 55th.
M: Is that rright. You're not much o lder than Rogerr
Staubach are you?
BG: Oh , yes, I think so.
PG: And boy is he loved in the town of Baltimore.
M: Say, that - I'm surre you've been overr to Buffalo t o that
damn place wherre the U.S.S.Texas is ••• Yeah, Buffalo Bayou.
I had a brrotherr that was on that ship in World Warr I.
MAYES
BG: I served on the old [U.S.S.] New York. Not during
World War I. Just before World War II. They are sister
ships.
39
PG: They actually got the Texas out of the mud and over to
Galveston for repair work.
BG: Took it to the shipyard and put it in dry dock there
for extensive repair work.
M: In 1927 - you've been up the Hudson River, haven't you?
The whole Atlantic fleet come up there. See the Arkansas -
I thought the Arkansas was Texas' sister ship.
BG: No. New York. The Arkansas is even older than they
were.
M: Well, I sure thought it was. Well, anyway, they brought
the Atlantic fleet in there, you know, and you know how they
got those motor sails where they take them out there and go
aboard them. I was aboard it then in '27 and then I went
aboard it down there. But now it seems so much smaller now
than it did in 1927. Seems like a baby.
BG: So did the house I lived in in Berkeley, California,
for several years. I saw it later on; it looked so tiny.
M: And, you know, about two weeks after that fleet come
out, you know who come in there? The Japanese Navy, boy,
the same damn ships that started World War II. They went
plum up, see there wasn't no George Washington Bridge then.
But they went plum on up to past 200th Street. And they
stayed there about a week. I didn't go aboard none of those
ships. I was driving a taxi then and those Japs they'd get
off way up there past Grant's Tomb , you know, at 125th
MAYES 40
M: Street and they'd get off there and they'd pack them'
lunch on the ship and they'd wrap it in a blue bandana
handkerchief, you know. You know, you've worn the red one.
I've used them when I worked out in the cotton field. But
they would walk plum down to the Battery, you know, down to
the Statue of Liberty, and eat their lunch. But, boy, that
town was loaded with them. Of course, those kids there that
was in the navy, you know, the Japs, they didn't know what
was - but those boys - that Hirohito and that bunch, they
knew what was going on. See that was just 12 years before
Pearl Harbor.
BG: '39. I was there when the fleet came in again on the
old New York. When they had the World's Fair.
M: I was up there last March. The second time I'd been
back. I went back in '56.
PG: Mr. Mayes, did you say you worked in cotton fields?
Was it around here in Pampa?
M: Seventy miles from here. They very seldom ra ised any
cotton here. One year, in 1930, there was an old boy had 50
acres right north of here, but he had to take it to McClain,
and it's 34 miles to McClain. You know, there used to be
two gins there.
PG: Well, I wondered, because it looks like they've got
cotton planted coming up now as a second crop on the way up
here in some o f the red dirt fields.
M: I think that' s maize.
PG: Is it maize?
M: Yeah, where abouts did you see it?
MAYES 41
PG: Between here and Childress. It's a whole bunch of new
planting and it has a round leaf like okra.
M: Yeah. Well, that's cotton. Around Childress and
Wellington. Did you come up 287?
BG: Yes. All the way to 70.
M: That was cotton. Clarendon, they don't even raise much
of it around McClain any more. But when I grew up there was
5 gins in that little town of Erick, a town of 1200.
A: Well, all through the years wheat, I guess, has been the
main crop here in Gray County.
M: Yeah, they didn't even start raising maize until the
last 20 years. Nothing but wheat. Those farmers would
plant it by October 15, that was the date, you know. They
didn't go by no book or nothing. But it had to be planted
-they'd come to town, they'd hang around the barbershop or
some beer joint or something until harvest time, then they
could - see combines when I come here was only about 4 or 5
yeaL"s old. I think they started about 1923 or 4. But when
they first come out they weren't self propelled, you know,
you had to pull them with mules or horses. But they'd come
to town and loaf until haL"vest time and then go out and
harvest the wheat and then they plowed twice. You know plow
it and then about 30 days later and then they wouldn't do
nothing until October then they'd go plant. They was a lazy
breed.
PG: Well, and not only that, they just sat and counted on
rain. You had enough rainfall up here to keep a crop growing
from October until harvest time.
MAYES 42
M: Listen, this is a dry part of Texas right here. The
average rainfall here is only about 19 inches.
PG: Well, looks like you just got most of it.
M: We've got 9 inches since you've been here.
A: We were out for a couple of weeks and I missed most of
it but I know in the past three or four weeks it has rained
a heck of a lot.
M: It has rained more than it has rained all year long.
Last year was one of the most bountiful rain crops we have
had since I've been here.
A: There was one other question I had on sports, and of
course, being a teacher up at the high school I'm interested
in it, but I notice that back in earlier times, 1931, it
looks like the B team was called the Gorillas .
M: Yes, they don't have that any more, do they?
A: No . I was wondering how they got that name.
M: I don't know how they got that name. I'll swear I
don't. But boy they graduated from there sometime during
the season they'd move one up, you know.
A: From the Gorillas up to the Harvesters.
M: You know how many coaches Pampa had then?
A: Well, I think it had three, didn 't they.
M: Well , counting the coach of the Gorillas. But Pampa had
Otis Mitchell, a fellow by the name of Argus Fox, and they
coached football, basketball, baseball, and track, all four
of them.
A: Had a lot of spare time on their hands, didn't they?
M: That Otis Mitchell was quite an athlete.
MAYES 43
A: Oh, I bet he was.
M: You know, he's got Alzheimer's now. Isn't that awful?
PG: That's a bad thing. Would your wife be coming home
anytime soon from the beauty parlor?
M: I doubt it. Let's see •••
PG: It is after twelve. I was hoping I could get a picture
of both of you.
M: She may be. Well, even if she goes down to Senior
Citizens. She may go there and eat her lunch. She knows
all those people you know.
BG: Senior Citizens. How does she qualify for Senior
Citizens?
M: I've never eaten there. That's for old people.
PG: Oh, boy. Well you certainly have filled us in with
some wonderful details.
END OF SIDE 2. APPROXIMATELY 30 MINUTES.

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THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: Jesse Mayes
DATE: June 30, 1989
PLACE: Pampa, Texas
INTERVIEWERS: Bill and PFecious GFegg
./'""
BG: MF. Mayes, will you just say a sentence or two to
identify your voice on this tape?
M: I'm Jesse Mayes. I live at 1333 Starkweather in Pampa,
Texas.
BG: Thank you. Next we have our host, Mike.
A: This is Mike Andrews in Pampa and I'm enjoying all of
these interviews with these people who know so much about
our county.
BG: All right, Precious.
PG: Hello, glad to join in and find out about Pampa and
what the northeFn paFt of Texas is like.
BG: Well, now. You say you carne here about 60 years ago?
M: Yeah. The fiFst day of April 1929.
BG: Where was it that you were started? FFom where did you
come?
M: I was Faised about 72 OF 3 miles oveF in Oklahoma.
BG: So you ceFtainly were in this area.
M: Oh, yeah. I grew up there in a little town name of
Erick. Finished school there, finished high school, that's
MAYES
M: all, then I went to New York and stayed a couple of
years and come back and got married and come up here.
2
BG: I can't blame you. After being in New York two years
you were probably ready to come back here. You had already
finished school when you came here.
got married. Met your wife here?
So, you came here and
M: Oh, no. I married my school sweetheart. I'd known my
wife all along. No, we were married and had one little boy
when we came here. He was born November 24th in '28 and we
got here the first day of April so that'd have made him -
January, February, March - about 4 months old.
BG: What business did you get into when you first got
here?
M: I shined shoes in the barber shop - six-chair
barbershop - for 2 and a half years.
BG: And then ...
M: Then I worked - I tended bar, I worked in the oil field,
I roughnecked, I rig builded, I drilled on a rotary, I was a
truck driver, and that's about - then during the war I had a
little neighborhood grocery store. Then after the war I
went into business in the restaurant business. I have put
in two places, the Pennant Club and the Rathskeller. I put
in the Pennant Club in 1951 and the Rathskeller in '65.
BG: That's a slightly varied experience I'd say. What was
the town like when you first came here?
M: Well, where I'd been down in Oklahoma, you know, a
little bitty town like that, and I'd been away from the
hustle and bustle of New York for a little over a year,
MAYES 3
M: this was - see the depression started that year up east
but gradually come west. And this was a brand new oil field
and Pampa was a very bustling town. Business was good.
There was no unemployment. Of course, during prohibition
there was a lot of bootlegging, a lot of gambling.
PG: It sounded like an awful lot of hard work here, too.
M: Oh, boy. You can say that again.
A: A lot of your work was associated with the oil fields,
then.
M: Absolutely, absolutely, 90% of my business, even when I
was in business, were oil field people.
A: I guess that's what brought your big break, caused you
to break away from the shoe shining, was the coming of the
oil business.
M: Well, that's about all I knew how to do when I come here
was shine shoes. But, you know, it sounds like a menial job
but back in those days a shine was 1St and I made - a
six-chair barber shop, I made as much money as the barbers
did. In '29 and '30 I averaged about $100 a week. That was
good wages. In fact that was more than the boys working in
the oil fields made.
A: Looks t o me like you were the shrewd one in that line of
work.
PG: You stayed under cover and weren't out in the
elements.
M: But, when the depression hit, boy it was a different
proposition, I'll tell you that.
BG: Yeah, the institution of Hushpuppies, which I do not
MAYES 4
BG: have on today, made a big change in that too. The
barber shop I patronize used to have a shoe shine boy. They
don't now.
A: Do you remember any interesting experiences in your
restaurants that took place or - I believe you said you kept
bar for a while - can you think of any interesting episodes
that occurred in those places.
M: Well, a lot of them I don't guess they'd want to go down
in the archives! That's the heck of it!
PG: Was there much excitement when the first oil was
discovered?
M: Well, now the oil had been discovered about three years
when I got here. But, of course, the big drilling program
was after I come here. They hadn't drilled too many wells
but there is a high plateau right outside of town about two
miles. They had a beer joint out there they called the "y"
tavern. They had a gambling joint but at night this was way
before they had spacing, you know. They'd drill those
derrick tracks like they are in East Texas, you know.
Gladewater, back in there. But you could count 100 rigs
running between here and Lefors. This was in '29 and '30.
But when '31 carne, boy, she shut down and I don't guess there
was not over 15 wells drilled there in '32 and '33.
A: Well, did it go for a long time there without any more
drilling?
M: Oh, yes. It went practically-there wasn't a whole lot of
drilling until '35. It was just a hit and miss proposition.
There was a few. But oil got so cheap, you know. When I carne
MAYES 5
M: here oil was $2.75 a barrel. And by 1932 it was $.18.
BG: A barrel?
M: A barrel. Ten cents in East Texas. Ten cents a
barrel.
PG: Good heavens! What a difference!
BG: Well, of course, you have to look at the percentages,
too. What the rest of the country was like at that time. A
dollar a day was good wages during the depression but maybe
not out here. I don't know.
A: In your work with the oil field. What would you
consider one of the most dangerous jobs? Did you ever
have some dangerous work?
M: No. Of course, it was all dangerous. Everything was
above you, you know, all the machinery and stuff. But it
wasn't too dangerous. But, in the early days before they
unitized those draw works - I don't know whether you know
what I mean or not. They took two shafts and just put them
in one and put a cover over them, you know. And that
eliminated a lot of accidents.
PG: Would those rigs get caught with wind and knocked
over?
M: Oh, no. No, see, you put a guy wire. You dug what you
called a "dead man" at each corner, you know, and then you
had two guy wires, one about halfway up and one at the top
of the derrick it went out and you tied onto those and you
had a turn buckle where you could tighten them all the time.
No, the wind wasn't no trouble at all.
A: Were those early derricks made out of wood?
MAYES 6
M: The eaaly ones weae but theae was veay few heEe. They
had gone to steel. Back east, you know, of course - the Eig
buildeEs that built the steel deEEicks they had .woEked on
wooden deraicks.
Just a minute. TheEe was a fellow, man, come heae in
the '70s. He's working fOE the Houston post now. And he
worked the Pampa Daily News and he inteEviewed me theae for
about a month and when I Eetired, quit, sold out, I had a
waitress that kept all those, and I've got a scrapbook of
them.
BG: We appreciate it.
M: Between Texola and Benonine. And you know how they
named that Benonine?
A: How's that?
M: This was way back in the eaEly days. That's when Wade's
dad come out here. TheEe was no fences or nothing. These
cowboys would - it was raining this afternoon and had been
raining fOE several days like it has down there in East
Texas and they found an old deck of cards that the people
had been playing with. They had mud and everything on them,
you know, so they got them a poker game that afternoon. It
was raining and they got inside. So long about the middle
of the afternoon two old boys got in a big pot and stud
poker was all they played then. They both shoved in and
this old boy turned his hole card over and he said: A paiE
of nines, and that old boy looked at it and he said: Well,
that ain't no nine. The guy said: By God, it's been a nine,
so they named that town Benonine.
Some people come faom the east out heae, some aeal
MAYES 7
M: estate people, and they built about six blocks of
sidewalks there and they drew a plan, you know, and they
made that an incorporated city. The Rock Island went
through there. The train went from Tucumcari to Memphis,
Tennessee. Went right through it. And they give it where
it was coast to coast, you know, the railroad, and
that north fork of Red River that Randolph Morrissey
misjudged for the Red River. It come up, you know, and it
just heads right south of Pampa here. They said they give
that in there as being navigable. Lot of shipping on it.
And they went back east and they sold those lots in that
town. But you know, what made that town prosper, they built
a three-story school building the re . It was there for
years. But it's all crumbled now. All's left there is a
bank vault.
A: Is that in Texas?
M: Yeah, it's in Texas, right on the state line. It's a
little bit off of 1-40. You've got to know where it is.
But you can see that bank vault.
A: The history of the name of that's pretty neat.
M: Yeah, it sure is. Now, this here, I was going to
Chicago, I was going up t o see Notre Dame and southern Cal
play but we went to Chicago and stayed there and here's what
that same boy wrote of this. Now this here is practically
about all the o il fields. See, I don't have the memory that
I did then.
BG: That's strange.
PG: Well, you've got a good one.
MAYES 8
A: How did you get in with the Rathskeller, Mr. Mayes?
When I first came to Pampa 10 years ago, I heard that that
was one of the best places to eat in town and the story I
heard that one fellow ran the whole operation.
M: That was me.
A: And so, how did you get into that Rathskeller business?
M: Well, of course, the times will make you do what you
gotta do to survive, you know. So it just wound up that the
waitresses, they just got so undependable, why I just had to
- I just round up a nigger woman and a nigger boy, by golly,
and that's all there was. And I done good at it. I had it
- of course, when I first put it in times was pretty good
then. That's when they'd hit that field up between here and
Perryton.
A: Did you dream up all the menus and everything?
M: Oh, certainly. Absolutely.
A: Well, it must have been a big hit.
M: That was a one-man show. I even mopped the floor and
waxed it. I run that - but see, first, I had a credit club
out on the south side. You know where the tearoom is now?
Have you ever been out that way? On Brown Street? I put
that in in '51.
A: I see. Well, you are a survivor. You did whatever it
took to survive a nd you were successful at it. Had a lot of
grit and determination . Did the people back in those oil
days - I guess there were a lot of transients. People that
just carne and went.
M: Oh, worlds of them. Yeah. In the early days there was
MAYES 9
M: about as many bootlegging joints in Pampa as the~e was
businesses. Lot of people made a living selling that
homeb~ew . In fact I t~ied a little of that.
PG: Did they make it f~om the g~ains he~e?
M: That home b~ew? Su~e.
PG: Tell us about making it. That ' s anothe~ interesting
thing.
M: You want to know how to make homeb~ew?
PG: Yes.
M: Okay. I've made a million gallons of it. Well, you get
you a lO-gallon c~ock and fill it full of water . Then, they
got malt cans, malt you can buy it at any g~oce~y, any big
sto~e, you know. Have you eve~ d~ank home brew?
BG: No.
M: Neve~ did, huh. Well, all you do is just get you a can
of that malt. You put 10 pounds of suga~ in the~e, and just
be su~e you've got clean hands and clean arms and just
dissolve it in this wate~. You pou~ that can of malt in
the~e, and then put a cake of yeast on top of it, and you
ought to put it close to a stove in a wa~m place and it'll
sta~t fe~menting, you know , then you gotta skim it fou~ Olr
five times a day and du~ing the night fo~ about 5 o~ 6 days.
When she settles off, well, and it's best to peel up a few
potatoes and just slice them and th~ow them in the~e and
that'll clea~ it up. Those potatoes they pull all that
stuff to it, you know.
PG: Just like they do with onions in soup. They keep it
f~om being too strong and they pull some of the flavolr.
MAYES
M: Yeah, but that onion gives soup a flavor, too.
A: Well, that's true.
BG: You mean it was ready to drink after about .S days?
10
M: Oh, yeah. That's right. Everybody in the country had a
rubber hose. You just siphoned it, you know, and just put it
in one bottle to the other and you had a capper there. You
set a bottle in there and put a cap on it and shove it on
it.
BG: How about that.
PG: And it was ready to sell.
M: Oh, well, oh, I've drank a lot of it while I was
bottling it. But it needs to set about a week or ten days.
PG: Boy, that's a shorter time than wine making, that's for
sure.
M: Oh, you bet.
BG: I often wondered how the Rock Island Railroad got its
name ..
M: That I COUldn't tell you. You know, it was the Chicago
Rock Island & Pacific, CRI&P.
BG: So there must have been a Rock Island somewhere along
the line.
M: Well, it might have been from Rock Island, Illinois.
A: Can you think of any experiences out in the oil field
when the weather was bitter and times were really rough out
there because of the weather?
M: Can I! Boy, you tell 'ern. See, it took about, in those
days, of course everything, they got everything modern now,
you know. So it's a different ball game. See, back in those
days, when I worked in the oil field, you had to have
MAYES 11
M: plenty of gas and plenty of waterr. Because we had
thrree boilerrs, frrom 100 to 125 horrsepowerr boilerrs. That was
yourr power. You had to have - and they burrned about 40
barrels an hourr each. Oh, yeah, you know, back when they
firrst starrted up, it was rright afterr the Dust Bowl days.
You rrememberr the Dust Bowl. Wel~people can't really. Of
course, you've seen pictures, they've prrobably shown you
picturres. But, I've been out therre rrigging up, you know,
wherre you'rre getting rready to drrill. It took about thrree
days back in those days; all thrree crews to rrig it up.
But I've seen the time, see those derrrricks were 24
foot, the floor was 24 foot squarre. Then, yourr firrst girrt
was 10 foot, then they was 14 and 7 foot. Then of courrse
you had to wait forr the rrig builderrs. That was a different
prroposition. They built that themselves. They had the
first union that was in the Panhandle.
BG: Is that rright?
M: Oh, yeah, you bet yourr life they did, and it was a
strong one, too. Yeah, while the rrest of us made $7.00 a
day, they made $20.00 a nd $22.00 a day. But they earrned it.
But you talk about that weather. I've been out therre 18
below zero at night, on morrning tower.
A: Gosh. Kind of a lonesome feeling.
M: I remember - but I've seen i n those Dust Bowl days, when
we was rrigging up you couldn't see from one corner to the
other. Somebody standing over therre. And it'd stay that
way all day long. But you know, back then, that drilling
would come in spurts. It wasn't steady. You'd have to wait
MAYES 12
M: until these big companies, they'd make their budget and
they'd allow so much for drilling. And a l ot of times, the
last three months, the last quarter, why they'd have some
money left over then they'd hire a bunch and work was really
good there fo~ a few months. of course, the good hands all
wo~ked. A lot of them, you know, there was good and bad
hands in any business.
A: What would you say made you decide to stay in Pampa?
With business up and down in the oil situation - sort of.
M: I just liked the people here.
A: What was it about the people that you liked?
M: They're just good people.
A: Had a lot of determination.
M: Yeah, you know. And you just like them. Their word is
good. And I don't know, I wouldn't want to live nowhere
else. I never did have any idea of leaving town. Never
entered my mind. Of course, I've done a lot of traveling
since I've been here.
A: Well, that's what Mr. Duncan said yesterday. The man's
word was good.
M: Oh, you bet your life. It's still that way.
A: There are a lot of tales, you know, in history about law
over in Borger and the trouble the rangers coming in, and so
forth. What was the law situation over here in Pampa, was
it
M: No, we had a sheriff that was "on the take"; they had an
o ~ganizati on he~e. Absolutely. This fell ow , his name - he
was from Cleveland, Texas. His name was Graves. I guess
MAYES 13
M: Wade might have told you something about him. E. S.
Graves. He corne - I don't know how he ever got elected. Now
this-he got elected here I guess the first time .about 1920.
See, when I was a kid there at Erick, growing up, that's
where I started shining shoes there for a brother-in-law of
mine that had a barber shop. But, my mother died when I was 5
and a little town, it was a town of about 1200 then, and a
lot of people just took a liking to me and then every town
had a small baseball team, a sandlot team, you know. So, I
got about 12 or 13 years old why the old boy that got the
team he owned a gin and I'd known him all my life, so I just
went along with the team jerking bats, you know, bat boy.
We corne to Pampa several times. The first time that I
was ever arrested was right here i n Pampa. (laughter) In 1923.
That hotel. It was a 3-story hotel right across from the
depot there, the old Liberty Hotel. And the ma n-I never did -
Texas had funny laws then,a lot funnier than Oklahoma.
(laughter) And this deputy he just looked up there and saw
there was 5 of us shooting dice, all from Erick, the baseball
team a nd me, the mascot, and he just looked up there a nd saw
us shooting dice, he didn't say nothing until the next
morn ing the fellow that had the ball club he corne up a nd woke
up several of us sleeping in one big room up there.
The old boy's name was Corneliason. He shook him and
said, Corny they caught you all last night. Well, he didn't
know nothing about it. And he said well caught you doing
what, he was still half asleep. Shooting dice. So I heard
MAYES 14
M: him, so I jumped up and I said: Sam, - well that was in
'23, I was 16 then, And I said, Well, me and Bald Stubbs
and a fellow name of Evans, Lester Evans, he drove one of
the cars that we traveled in, Model T Ford Touring. So Sam
he goes down and he goes over to the City Hall, then, and
that City Hall was right over there where the Snyder Hotel
Apartments are now. And paid the fine but I told him there
was just two of us shooting, of course, there was 5 of us
shooting. We all chipped in on the fine, it cost us $7.00
apiece.
PG: Oh, goodness, and you were underage?
M: Oh, yes. But getting back to this fellow Graves. He
was the most peculiar fellow that - did you ever see a shoe
boot? That's what he wore all the time.
BG: Congress Gators I think they called them.
M: They only corne to here, but they looked, built just like
a boot and you lace them up. I used to shine his boots all
the time. But he was - boy, he ruled it with an iron hand
but he was a man without a whole lot of courage, I'll tell
you that. You've heard of Lone Wolf Gonzales haven't you?
A: I don't believe I have.
M: Never did - he was a Texas Ranger. He was a half breed
and he was the bull of the woods. When he corne somewhere
everybody was afraid of him. Everybody knew exactly what
had happened, you know. I n fact, right at the end of his
career, they caught 40, they indicted 40 of them in Federal
Court for conspiracy to break the Volstead Act.
A: The sheriffs?
M: Oh, yeah, they got him. They had 40 of them.
MAYES 15
A: Who was this Texas Ranger you mentioned?
M: His name was Lone Wolf Gonzales. When you talk to Ruth,
Ruth could tell you about him. Of course, Ruth . is 5 years
younger than I am.
A: Well, did this Lone Wolf Gonzales - was he up in this
part of the state?
M: He just come up occasionally, but when he'd walk in the
courthouse this old Graves they tell me, I didn't see it,
but he just got so nervous he just grabbed his hat and he
got - he drove a Hudson coupe but he would go somewhere.
But he was on the take, but there was a fellow by the name
of - that's here I'm getting bad at - is remembering names.
A: Don't feel bad about it, we're that way too.
BG: Already.
M: Really. Well, anyway, anybody that sold a bottle of
homebrew you paid him so much a month. And nobody brought
any whiskey in here, he brought it all in. You went and
bought it from him. And then take it out to the joints and
sell it by the pint or the quart but you bought it from him
in those three-gallon cases, you know, six half gallons.
A: When did the law straighten up its act around here and
stop doing things on the take and so forth? Was there
anything that caused that?
M: I'll tell you what. No, it just gradually kept a voting
them out. It was pretty bad up to '36. It really was.
A: Well, when the Rangers came over to Borger there, did
it have any influence?
MAYES 16
M: Well, I wasn't heEe then. That was befoEe I come heEe.
But now I was he~e when they killed the dist~ict attorney.
A: Now we haven't heaEd about that.
M: Johnny Holmes killed the district attorney. See that's
a different dist~ict than we're in. But they shot him I
think in his back yard. I never did see him. But it come
out - the Pampa paper come out with an extra.
BG: What was Johnny Holmes' problem?
M: A heavy prosecuto~. And boy, well I guess , I bette~ let
- Ruth will want to tell you about the big bank robbery.
A: Well, you may give it a different dimension.
M: Well, no, Ruth was here. I wasn't here. But I tell you -
the only thing, don't mention this to him now . He 's gonna
tell you how much they got , but he was wrong because for
years, see that barber shop where I wo~ked, they had ex­panded
that First National Bank about I guess 50 feet from
what it originally was. About 57 feet. But there was just
a record between the barbe~ shop where I worked and the
bank. And I'd go in there to get change and stuff. I neve~
had much money in the bank then. But fo~ years they had to
hang every teller, but they had a photostatic copy of the
bank that the insurance company give them and there was
$32,000. Now I don't know what - but no need of correcting
him , but he was going to school over at Kingsville, and they
claimed he rode a horse over here. I'm s'Jre he'd come over
to get something. But he knew this fellow Graves that was
sheriff; he was sheriff then. Then there was - you never
heard of the robbery?
MAYES
A: Yeah, I've heard of the robbery.
M: You know, that house is still right out there now.
a brick house about 4 miles west of town.
A: They stayed there for a night, didn't they?
17
It's
M: No, they stayed in the dark. And then they went to
Borger. And I knew a fellow personally that saw them divide
the money over there that night. The five of them.
A: Well, some people were killed over there, weren't they?
M: There was a lot of people killed over there.
A: I mean in connection with that bank robbery?
M: No. No, they never did catch but just one of those
guys. When they caught him, well back then he had
consumption they called it, TB, you know, and so they just -
the name was Ace Pendleton. Matthew Kimes and his brother.
He was the ring leader. You've heard of them, I know.
Kimes - he was about the same time of Pretty Boy Floyd.
A: Oh, I see.
M: They was from over there in southeastern Oklahoma.
Matt
A: Well, back in the earlier times here, what were some of
the things people d id for entertainment around here?
M: Have you been in the Rathskeller?
A: Yeah, I've been in there several times.
M: Well, that's one-fourth of the Plamore, that 50 x 40,
the Ratheskeller. And the Plamore was 200 x 160. Right
there on the corner. That was a Bucket of Blood. They had
wrestling there, they had fighting then, you know, had
boxing, but every Saturday night they had a big dance
there. Across the street on both sides they wasn't no
MAYES 18
M: buildings. None of those buildings was there. Just
weeds, tumbleweeds growing up, you know, and that's whe~e
the boys would go over the~e and fight it out.
PG: Did they have to pay to watch them, or .••
M: Oh, no, no. Oh, you mean the fights? Yeah they had a
ring, you bet your life, and they'd fill that place. The~e
was two theaters he~e then, back then, but outside of that
Plamore they could even come over, they come over from
Amarillo to dance there on Saturday night.
PG: Good heavens, must have had a good band .
M: Did have. They had some good bands, they really did.
A: You mean they had boxing in the same building the re , the
Plamore, where they had dances?
M: Correct, correct.
A: Just sort of a general ...
M: Correct, you could dismount that ring and put it off to
the side and then they had this where you danced they had
this roped off, too. You had to pay so much to get in there
and dance.
A: We~e these boxers and wrestlers , were they mostly
brought in from other places?
M: Absolutely. Yeah , there was two or three raised here.
Very few. But they were brought in. Cal Farley wrestled
over he~e.
M: Oh, yeah, you know that set up Boys' Ranch.
BG: Oh, yeah. Cal Farley. I knew that name was familiar.
A: Was he a pretty good ...
M: World's Champ ion. Cal Farley was. He wrestled twice in
Amarillo for the world's championship. You know, he was
MAYES 19
M: champion of the AEF dUFing WOFld WaF I.
A: I see.
BG: That was when they did rreal wrrestling, not .this show
business type.
M: That's rright. And that guy, he wFestled a guy by the
name of Jack Wolf fOF the champion. You know, it wasn't no
showoff then, it was rreal wrrestling. But he wasn't a big
man like they got. He was about YOUF size.
PG: He just knew how to catch the otherr fellow off guard.
BG: The fights you mentioned awhile ago acrross the strreet,
they werre just prrivate fights, people at the dance orr the
barr? They'd go outside.
M: Yeah. Absolutely. They always had a bouncerr, he'd
bounce them out and they'd go oveF there in those
tumbleweeds and fight it out.
PG: Well, did the girrls come herre i n like busses or carrs orr
wagons to the dance?
M: Oh, no, they lived heFe.
PG: These were all local girrls.
M: Absolutely. Boy, they couldn't wait till Saturday night
to get there. The Fe wasn't no shortage of giFls. None -
never - absolutely.
Last night's paperr. I noticed where an old boy, he was
bOFn i n 1901, had a stroke, but I remember him, he and his
wife worrked down theFe taking up tickets and they went
together I guess 20 years before they ever got maFried.
PG: Boy, that's the good old days.
M: When I saw that that's the fi~st thing I thought of.
Him being down there at the Plamorre.
MAYES 20
A: Well, say on a night when there was boxing at the
Plamore, just off the top of your head, about how many
people would you say would be watching a match down there.
M: I'd say there'd be at least 500.
A: Is that right!
M: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
A: Boy, that was a big crowd.
M: You ain't a kiddin'.
PG: That was standing room only then with that many
people.
M: They had an old boy by the name of Joe Kopeck. Now was
one of the first that went to putting on that show you know.
And he was rough as the dickens. He danced one night.
There was a lot of transients. I mean there was a ton of
t ransients. This old boy come in the barber shop. We had a
barber there - his name was Clarence Holman - and he wasn't
much of a barber. He was a gambler. He'd sit up all night
long and play poker, you know, and then he'd doze off during
the day there in the barber shop.
But one of these transients come in there, the only
time I ever saw him. And the man that owned the barber
shop, the shine stand was right in front, right there right
in front of the north part of the bank of the building. And
the man that owned it)the cash register was right there
behind the first chair.
So this old boy, this guy come in and this barber
shaved him. His name was Clarence Holman. And so he had
seen the fights, this wrestling match the night before, and
MAYES 21
M: this Kopeck. We had a blacksmith here in town, he got
killed heEe. He tUEned into a bootlegger. And he had
wrestled that guy and he was a good one. He had wrestled
him the night before and this stranger got him to shave - I
guess his EaZOE was dull and so he cOme up to pay him.
Shaves was a quarter you know. And he went to give the owner
a quarter and he says I didn't know you had Kopecki working
here. So everybody, we called him Kopecki from then on, the
barber. (laughter)
But, you wanted to know about - I'll tell you about
this oil - about the oil fields, that's what you wanted to '
know. See , what CEeateS a boom is a lot of drilling. See ,
it isn't the people that drilled them. BefoEe you see when
you stake a location, your rig builders then went out and
they dug a cellar, 6 X 6 X 6 . Then , they built the derrick.
Then the Eoustabouts that wOEked for the company that the
contractor was going to drill the well for, they had to lay
a gas line and a water line up there. You had to have all
that. Then you moved the rig i n . No, before you moved the
rig in you dig a pit. See you have to circulate that mUd.
Have you ever been around a drilling rig?
A: Not that close; not while they are working.
M: Well, you see you ' ve got a pit full of mud. You can
start out with clear water, but then you l e t sometimes the
formation if it will let you do it, you don't have to have
no mud until you get on down , but sometimes you don't. You
got to mix mud, pour it in there and you make gum and yOU
gum it up, you know, and you take the mud out o f that pit.
MAYES 22
M: But anyway, back in those days there was a lot of
mules; you used a lot of horses and mules; and they had
these fresnoes to dig these slush pits, they called them.
Then, every time you rigged up we had to come in and go get
in that pit after they'd dug it, put a partition, one
partition in there to stop the shale. You get a lot of
dirty shale down on down as you go lower -
A: In other words, just mud-(to back up the people that are
listening to this tape.) The drag that you are talking
about, what did you call that?
M: A fresno, that's what you dig it with.
A: In other words, a scoop that the mules pulled.
M: That's right.
A: And the mud, now, is used to bring up the stuff the
drill bit dislodged. You pump the fresh mud down -
M: Correct.
A: And the bits and pieces come back out.
M: That's what you call circulation.
A: And now that's why you are saying they needed a divider
down there in the pit - to keep the dirty mud from the good
mUd.
M: Right. But it's done so different now you wouldn't
realize it.
BG : Well , we don't.worry about now. We were worried.
M: All right. Then the crews come in. They take fresh
lumber. They wasted a lot of lumber back in those days.
They 'd take fresh lumber and go out and build a suction
rack. See , you got a big mud pile setting right on the edge
MAYES 23
M: of the pit which is a ve~y cent~al pa~t of the
d~illing, I'll tell you that. But it's got a section that
goes out in there that goes flat and then goes down so you
build a rack and put a rope around it wherre you can raise
that section, orr lowe~ it as you drrill, you know.
All rright, then they piled up a lot of dirt, a lot of
dirt was behind one side of the derrick, you set your engine
on that. The engine was about as long as that divan OVer
there. A steam engine. Every thing run -
A: About 9 feet.
M: You set it down. Then you pull the drraw worrks forrward
but beforre that you've got to space. They leave 3-inch
boa~ds - the rrig builderrs they leave 3-inch boards just on
that 24 foot derrick, 24-foot square, you know, the floor of
it. But, the roughnecks come in and they saw it to split it
t o where you can - you've got t o set your rotor table i n
there.
See, and over to one side you dig a rat hole - what
they called a rat hole - and you put a pipe in therre. The
purrpose of that ~at hole is - after you put your drill stem
in the hole you've got what you call a kelly. It's square
and you put a rotor table i n there. Set in your rotor table
and then you put yourr chains and everything on and you put a
big standpipe in the COrner of the derrick and there is a
hose that goes f~om that stand pipe on top - you see, then
you have tra ve ling blocks that pulls that up and down, you
know. Got six lines in it and on top there is a crOwn and
you gotta take one line through your t raveling block and
MAYES 24
M: pull it over the crown block until you get six lines in
theNe and then that's what your draw works, that's what they
do is control this pulling that pipe up and down.
And then, of couNse, you put a chain on theNe for YOUN
rotoE table. See that's got to tUEn aEound fON YOUE dEill.
And then after you get all - in the meantime, the firemen
they are rigging up these thEee boileEs. You get those
Eigged up and the n , of course, the Eigmen they dig the dead
men to put the guy lines on to hold that, keep that deEEick
from blowing over. It's up there pEetty good. But then you
gotta dig a dead man behind the engine. TheEe is a cross
bar there that you put a chain around it about an 8 x 10 and
you bUEY it. But you got a tUEn buckle on it wheEe you can
tie -
BG: The 8 x 10 he just descEibed is a dead man because it
is bUEied crossways to the guy wiEe at 90 degEees to it's so
that buried in the ground that guy wiEe is held in place.
That's the dead man that he's been taking about.
A: About how deep are those dead men?
M: About 6 feet. But you see, back in those days you had
those mule teams. See they had to corne in and dig the pit.
The Eig builders had to corne i n and build the deErick, and
they had to dig the cellar. Well, then they usually, mostly
back in those days, you know, they had to build an auxiliary
tank theEe. A lot of that was built with cypress wood back
i n the early days. Before they went to steel.
PG: WheEe did they get cypress wood from?
M: Louisiana. Lou isiana and Florida is the only two states
MAYES
M: where you can get cypress.
A: Wonder why cypress was
M: Have you ever been to New Orleans?
A: No.
25
M: You haven't? They have still got, they got sewer lines
made out of cypress down there.
A: Is that right!
M: Yessiree, boy.
years.
It's been there I guess two hundred
A:
M:
A:
It doesn't rot?
No. It never rots.
Well, I'll be.
M: There are a lot of cypress tanks still. You go out in
the oil field here you can see some still sitting out there.
A: That's something.
BG: You gotta keep them wet, though. Well, any lumber,
sure.
A: Well, about how deep were you striking oil in those
days?
M: It was around 3200 was the deepest. It varied in the
elevation. See the elevation here in Pampa is 3264, right
out here on Hobart and where that Amarillo, right there is
where they take it. Of course, when you go to Dumas, you
see Dumas is about 4000. Amarillo is 3900.
A: I see.
M: And Lefors, when you go to, well you, see you jump off
1000 feet going from here to Lefors. Now that production
down there at Kellerville, that stuff, see it's only from 23
MAYES 26
M: to 2500.
A: I see.
M: But there are some wells here in the city limits. Have
you been out on Price Road and gone north of the cemetery,
Memory Ga1Tdens?
A: Yes.
M: You know that that - you sawall that junk there
when you turned off of Amarillo, didn't you?
A: Yeah.
M: Well, there's about eight oil wells right in there.
A: Is that right?
M: Sure.
A: My gosh.
M: Yeah. And I worked on several of those. Continental
drilled those, Continental Oil Company.
A: I see. Well now, after, when you have a lot of oil
activity and then things started slowing down, and maybe
there were layoffs and what have you, what sort of spirit
did the people of Pampa have? Did they get the blues pretty
badly or did they always think that something else was
gonna come --
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 1, 45 MINUTES
MAYES 27
SIDE 2.
BG: Had to turn the tape over. ME Mayes is still going
strong. As long as he's willing to talk, I guess we'll
listenl
A: After, of course, in addition to oil I guess there has
been farming and cattle raising around here that helped even
out the economy when oil was bad.
M: You bet your life. You couldn't do without that.
PG: Well, did your Rathskeller keep going all through the
depression?
M: Oh, I didn't put it in until after - during the
depression I was, pardon me (Phone ringing).
M: Sure, absolutely.
A: That Rathskeller are you tied in with it now?
M: Not a bit.
A: You sell electric .•.
M: That's right.
BG: Do you approve of the way they are run n ing it now?
M: Yes, sir. I really do. That old girl - well, you gotta
be able to - the public makes you - you are either a failure
or not. It's the general public tells you. You don't do it
yourself. You've got to give them something good, service.
Of course, down there, you know, why me running it
myself everybody got their salad, got their own drinks, got
their own bread and butter, and then I had about four things
every day on the menu and she still does. It don't take but
a minute. I had everything ready, you know. I'd selrve
about 100 or 150 there in a couple of hOUlrs. I worked till
MAYES 28
M: I was 75 there.
PG: Mr. Mayes, my husband grew up in Atlanta and got to see
a lot of the baseball with his daddy and I see from these
newspaper clippings that you sure like baseball}too.
M: Oh, shoot, I say I do. That lady I was talking - did
you ever hear of John Jenkins? You don't foll ow football?
No, where did you go to school?
A: Well, in college I went to different colleges. But I
went t o the University of Texas for a while, and SuI Ross
out at Alpine, and then West Texas State. But I went, in
high school I was down in San Antonio, at Jefferson High.
M: That's where Charlie Parker went to school.
A: Right. He was a track star and also Kyle Rote
graduated from Jefferson.
M: Yeah, that's right.
A: Pat Toler, who played for Texas.
M: Yeah. See, I had a boy that played at the University of
Texas. He graduated in '52.
A: Is that right!
M: Sure.
A: What position did he play?
M: He was a half back.
A: I think I may remember that.
M: They called him Red Mayes.
A: How about that! Did he go on to the pros?
M: Just for about 6 or 8 games with the Rams, and he
couldn't make it and they let him go.
A: I bet you are proud of him.
MAYES 29
M: Oh yeah.
A: Did you go down and watch him play some?
M: I went to see eve~y game that they played. .He played in
that All-Starr game in Chicago. I went up the~e. But he was
playing with the Rams then. That's when Bud Mc Fadden - he
played in that game with the college all-sta~s. You ~ememberr
when they used to have that game. See that A~ch Warrd, that
newspaperr man in Chicago.
A: Yeah. Who was coaching at Texas at that time?
M: The wo~st one they ever had, Ed Prrice.
A: Ed prrice. Do you know that the yearr I went to the
University of Texas he was the coach therre. An then, I
believe they brrought in Darrrrell Royal.
M: That's ~ight. That's exactly rright.
What yea~ werre you bo~n?
A: '34.
M: Yeah, he's fourr yea~s older than you. Well, this lady I
was talking/to her boy, he's the offensive coo~dinatorr fo~
the Univerrsity of Houston now . And when they had that team,
the Houston Gamb l errs , you know, that had that rrun and shoot
offense, well he rrun that, you know, he's a coach. His name
is John Jenkins.
And this lady she owned this house down herre. She and
he~ husband separrated and she was scarred to death that the
insurance company - it's been about 6 or 7 yearrs ago we had
a big hail he~e and everybody put on a new rroof and they
paid her the insurrance and she had peoples, rrenters in the~e
and they talked her out of it and so she has been visiting
John down at Houston and somebody told her
MAYES 30
M: they had a big hail he~e and that's what she was
wanting to know, whethe~ they had had a hail there. But my
boy run on the ~elay team with Cha~lie Panker. ,When he was
a senior. When Charlie was a senior.
A: Well your boy must be quite an athlete.
M: He was then, yes.
A: Well, could you tell us something about the old Pampa
Oile~s? About how many yea~s we~e they organized in Pampa?
10 or 15 years?
M: Well, let's see now. They started in - you see, they
had a - Dan Singen Oil and Refining Company, they built that
gnandstand down there. You know, it's ~ight across from
that Pennant Club that I had. I had 900 pennants in that
place. I've got a picture somewhere but I don't know whene
it is. But they stanted in '33. You know, Dan Singen had a
refineny out here at the edge of town . It burned - when they
was gonna unionize it - these Dan Singens diggers was used
out o f Tulsa, you know, and I don't blame them a bit. If
they was gonna unionize it and they just shut it down. Just
like the Schlitz Brewing Company did. But that's the best
team we've even had. In '34, it started in '33, '34, '35,
'36, and then is when they started that West Texas-New
Mexico League. But the Pampa Oilens, you see, that belonged
- first they called them the Roadrunners. That was the logo
of the Dan Singer Refinery. The Roadnunnens. And then,
aften they went into the league, West Texas-New Mexico
League, they changed it to the Pampa Oilens.
MAYES
A: Who were some of the other teams they played back in
those days?
M: In the League?
A: Yeah.
31
M: They - in New Mexico it was Clovis and Albuquerque. In
Texas there was Amarillo, Borger and Pampa, Lubbock, La
Mesa, and Abilene. Isn't that eight?
A: I believe that's pretty close to it.
M: That was the League, yeah.
A: Well, did Pampa ever win in that League; that Texas, New
Mexico?
M: Pampa won it one year. One year and they went down t o
East Texas and played a team for the championship of the
East Texas League. What in the world was the name of that
dad-burn town?
A: Well, did any of the players in Pampa go on up to the
major leagues?
M: We had one boy, Warren Hacker, went to the Chicago Cubs,
a pitcher. Then Lubbock had a fellow name of Serena that
went up as a shortstop. And, the fellow that owned the team
in Ama ri llo , Bob Seeds, he had been up, you know. He played
with the Yankees and the Giants both.
A: I guess they had pretty big crowds out there t o see
those games.
M: Oh , absolutely. Boy, you tell them.
A: I kinda hate to see minor league baseball in cities the
size of Pampa go by the wayside. Because I think they were
great.
MAYES 32
M: Do you know anything about baseball? Did you ever hear
of Aarron Ward?
A: No, I don't remember him.
M: Well, he played second base forr the Yankees in '21, '22
and '23, when the Yankees and the Giants played in the World
Series those three years. I saw my first Worrld Serries in
'26, between the Yankees and the Cardinals. That's when
Hornsby - he was playing second base.
PG: Is that what he - I couldn't rremember what he played.
M: Second base. He was the greatest hitter that ever
lived. He hit over .400 thrree straight years. Hit .424 one
year, in 1924.
A: His left-hand batting average was way up there, .340 orr
.350.
M: You know what Ty Cobb's was? .367 for 23 years.
A: Well, what do you think? Was it television that brought
about the downfall of say Pampa's team?
M: NO. Well, see, television didn't come in here until
about '53. I guess that was - but these games were never
televised. But television did, oh yeah, television ruined a
lot of things. You know, when I had that Pennant Club I
stayed open until midnight every night. Absolutely. And,
some of my best business was after the ball games and after
the beer joints would close.
A: I can tell you are quite a sports fan. What's your
favorite team nowadays in the major leagues?
M: In baseball?
A: Yeah.
MAYES 33
M: Oh, I like the Cubs 'cause we see them everry day, but I
like those Astros too.
PG: Oh, boy, they're trying. If they can just .hold on.
But they gotta come back up again.
A: Did you ever see a nO-hitterr pitched?
M: Neverr.
A: I thought maybe locally, in Pampa or something.
M: No, I've seen them pretty close, but I neverr did.
A: Old Nolan Ryan keeps flirting with it.
M: Boy, hasn't he. The last thrree times he had them up
u ntil the 7th inning, by gosh.
A: Well, some of those Pampa ball players settled in Pampa,
didn't they?
M: Yeah. There's one. Let's see, now. Joe Fortin and
Frrank Kemperr . They still live herre, but I can't think of
any.
A: The insurance man, Cal Secrist?
M: Yeah, you're thinking about that first baseman forr the
Univerrsity of Texas. His name is Newt. He come along right
at the very end. And he was a good catcher, too. Had a rreal
good arm. But one of the best players was in that league,
was raised overr herre at White Deerr, lived here. His name
was Groverr Seitz. There's a ton of them here. Here in
Mobeetie, and Wheeler, and Miami. They'rre allover this
Panhand le.
A: Well, in that old Texas-New Mexico League, would you say
pampa's biggest rival was Borger as it has always seemed?
M: Borger and Lubbock. Borgerr and Pampa, they really had a
MAYES 34
M: rivalry. Because they had a fellow come from Hollis,
Oklahoma , down here by the name of Gordon Elk. He's dead
now. Of course, Grover Seitz is dead. He got killed over
at Pullman Switch at Amarillo going to - He and his wife and
another fellow and his wife were going to the Golden Gloves
fight in Amarillo, and that train out there - you've driven
that road, you know, out there just before you get on 1-40,
on 1912, there's a railroad track, you know, going by there.
Well, he got killed a little bit north of there. I mean
west of there. Just hit that train, it killed all four of
them instantly. Just like you had dropped them 10,000 feet
from the air.
A: Well, at any of those ball games, baseball or football,
or whatever, between Borger and Pampa, did you ever see any
fights break out along the sidelines or up in the stands?
M: No, not necessarily. No, the biggest rivalry in the
world was between Pampa and Amarillo. Back in the '30s. In
football. High school. Amarillo only had one high school.
The Golden Sand Storm. And Pampa was the Pampa Harvesters .
See, in 1929, Pampa, there was only two classes, A and B.
And we was Class B. We was in the class with Perryton, and
Hereford and Memphis, and Childress and Vernon. We
played all of them, you know. But in 1930 we went to Class
A. And we played Amarillo . Blair Cherry was coaching
Amarillo . See , he won a state championship in '34, '35, and
' 36. Then he went to the university .
But we played - oh, when Pampa played Lubbock or
Amarillo, at one time we played Port Arthur. Run a special
MAYES 35
M: train from Pampa down there in 1938. And we were just
getting over the depression then. But between here and
Amarillo we'd rrun a special train over there and they'd run
one over here. Just for the game. See, the roads wasn't
like they are now. Of course, then, the Amarillo stadium
was right off the rrailroad track. That train would put on
the side track and you could walk - Butler Field is what it
was. They've torn it down now but it's just as if you go in
on NE 8th and keep going. That's where all the bad places
are now, you know.
Well, you see a bunch of elevators, Butler Field was
right over there by it. But I mean for years they only had
one rest room out there. And after that game was over, I
don't know where the ladies went. But after that game was
over, I'm not kidding, there'd be a stack of one-half pint
whiskey bottles. People would go out there and kill it and
just throw the bottle down and leave it. But they beat us
2-0 over there in the worst rainstorm you've ever seen.
A: Two to nothing, a safety.
M: Yeah, 2-0.
A: well, I guess that was quite an event.
M: Oh, man, have you seen an annual of that year?
A: No, I haven't.
M: I've got one. Let me show it to you.
Here, that's the year.
A: How about that. It's a hit.
M: You want one of those? That's where I went to school.
PG: Oh, yessir. I'd love to have one. Do you have enough
MAYES 36
PG: to keep one for yourself? Oh, that's a score sheet.
My brother in Austin has kept scores of all the Texas
games.
M: Well, I kept score on that game there. That was in
1927. At the Polo Grounds. It don't even exist any more.
A: No. New York Giants I guess were there. Was that the
Giants or the Dodgers at the Polo Grounds.
the Giants.
I guess it was
PG: This was Oklahoma. F. F. Andrews, Instructor in
History and Civics.
A: This Otis Mitchell, he went on to coach North Texas
State.
PG: Oh, did he?
A: Yeah. He was a well-known coach there at North Texas
State.
M: I was in Atlanta last fall. I was going t o Savannah, I
caught a plane there and went t o Savannah. I had a niece
living in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
A: I notice Otis Mitchell was the coach then. Of course he
went on to North Texas State and was there for years.
M: See, he went to Marshall from here.
BG: We have been making you talk for a l ong time.
M: Is there anything about the oil field that I left out
that you want to know?
A: I think you gave us about the most basic.
PG: Oh, it really was a marvelous description.
M: See, you take - when you got a hundred rigs running and
all the headquarters and see they are building those
MAYES 37
M: derricks and tearing down every day. Every time you
finish they gotta tear that derrick down and move it and
rebuild it, you know. And back in those days they had a
special crew that run the casing when it come time to run
the casing.
BG: That's where most of the hand accidents occurred,
wasn't it?
M: Well, no, that's when you are building the derrick.
Foot adz they called them. Did you ever see a foot adz?
BG: Not unless you are talking about the carpenter tool
that you swing like a hoe to trim a piece of lumber.
M: That's it. That's a foot adz. Those rig builders they
kept them as sharp as a razor. I'm not kidding you. I've
got one out in the garage.
BG: Haven't used it much recently, I don't suppose.
M: No. I've got a cat head out there too. You've probably
never seen a cat head.
PG: What's it used for?
M: A cat head is on your draw works that I was talking
about, you know, and it's on the outside. It is just a
round piece of steel like that and when you build the
derrick and they put a crown block up there you take an inch
hemp rope and go up there and put it over a pulley and you
keep one end by the cat head and one end tied some other
place and when you want to pick up s omething that is real
heavy to tie to this cat line then you wrap the other end
around this cat head that's running all the time. And you
got all the power in the world. You can lift anything.
MAYES 38
BG: You pull back on yourr end of the rrope and it winds up
and if you don't want to pUlljyou slack it off until it just
- the drrums arre rrevolving inside . I like yourr name betterr.
In the navy we call it, and I don't know what they call it
these days, niggerr head. Same thing.
end of a shaft that you use -
It's a drrum on the
M: Oh , yes, they used it forr loading. All boats have got
them.
BG: Maybe they call them cat heads on boarrd now.
A: This annual is fascinating he rre.
BG: which year annual is that, Mike?
A: It is 1931.
PG: And '25.
A: We saw Jesse's picturre in herre.
PG: Yes, we saw yourr picturre with currly hair in the '25
annual frrom Errick, Oklahoma.
Yea, I grraduated from high school in about '31 .
M: You did. By golly , you'rre no sprring chicken arre you.
PG: Not quite.
BG : Well, I've alrready been back forr my naval academy class
50th rreunion. Two morre yearrs I go back forr the 55th.
M: Is that rright. You're not much o lder than Rogerr
Staubach are you?
BG: Oh , yes, I think so.
PG: And boy is he loved in the town of Baltimore.
M: Say, that - I'm surre you've been overr to Buffalo t o that
damn place wherre the U.S.S.Texas is ••• Yeah, Buffalo Bayou.
I had a brrotherr that was on that ship in World Warr I.
MAYES
BG: I served on the old [U.S.S.] New York. Not during
World War I. Just before World War II. They are sister
ships.
39
PG: They actually got the Texas out of the mud and over to
Galveston for repair work.
BG: Took it to the shipyard and put it in dry dock there
for extensive repair work.
M: In 1927 - you've been up the Hudson River, haven't you?
The whole Atlantic fleet come up there. See the Arkansas -
I thought the Arkansas was Texas' sister ship.
BG: No. New York. The Arkansas is even older than they
were.
M: Well, I sure thought it was. Well, anyway, they brought
the Atlantic fleet in there, you know, and you know how they
got those motor sails where they take them out there and go
aboard them. I was aboard it then in '27 and then I went
aboard it down there. But now it seems so much smaller now
than it did in 1927. Seems like a baby.
BG: So did the house I lived in in Berkeley, California,
for several years. I saw it later on; it looked so tiny.
M: And, you know, about two weeks after that fleet come
out, you know who come in there? The Japanese Navy, boy,
the same damn ships that started World War II. They went
plum up, see there wasn't no George Washington Bridge then.
But they went plum on up to past 200th Street. And they
stayed there about a week. I didn't go aboard none of those
ships. I was driving a taxi then and those Japs they'd get
off way up there past Grant's Tomb , you know, at 125th
MAYES 40
M: Street and they'd get off there and they'd pack them'
lunch on the ship and they'd wrap it in a blue bandana
handkerchief, you know. You know, you've worn the red one.
I've used them when I worked out in the cotton field. But
they would walk plum down to the Battery, you know, down to
the Statue of Liberty, and eat their lunch. But, boy, that
town was loaded with them. Of course, those kids there that
was in the navy, you know, the Japs, they didn't know what
was - but those boys - that Hirohito and that bunch, they
knew what was going on. See that was just 12 years before
Pearl Harbor.
BG: '39. I was there when the fleet came in again on the
old New York. When they had the World's Fair.
M: I was up there last March. The second time I'd been
back. I went back in '56.
PG: Mr. Mayes, did you say you worked in cotton fields?
Was it around here in Pampa?
M: Seventy miles from here. They very seldom ra ised any
cotton here. One year, in 1930, there was an old boy had 50
acres right north of here, but he had to take it to McClain,
and it's 34 miles to McClain. You know, there used to be
two gins there.
PG: Well, I wondered, because it looks like they've got
cotton planted coming up now as a second crop on the way up
here in some o f the red dirt fields.
M: I think that' s maize.
PG: Is it maize?
M: Yeah, where abouts did you see it?
MAYES 41
PG: Between here and Childress. It's a whole bunch of new
planting and it has a round leaf like okra.
M: Yeah. Well, that's cotton. Around Childress and
Wellington. Did you come up 287?
BG: Yes. All the way to 70.
M: That was cotton. Clarendon, they don't even raise much
of it around McClain any more. But when I grew up there was
5 gins in that little town of Erick, a town of 1200.
A: Well, all through the years wheat, I guess, has been the
main crop here in Gray County.
M: Yeah, they didn't even start raising maize until the
last 20 years. Nothing but wheat. Those farmers would
plant it by October 15, that was the date, you know. They
didn't go by no book or nothing. But it had to be planted
-they'd come to town, they'd hang around the barbershop or
some beer joint or something until harvest time, then they
could - see combines when I come here was only about 4 or 5
yeaL"s old. I think they started about 1923 or 4. But when
they first come out they weren't self propelled, you know,
you had to pull them with mules or horses. But they'd come
to town and loaf until haL"vest time and then go out and
harvest the wheat and then they plowed twice. You know plow
it and then about 30 days later and then they wouldn't do
nothing until October then they'd go plant. They was a lazy
breed.
PG: Well, and not only that, they just sat and counted on
rain. You had enough rainfall up here to keep a crop growing
from October until harvest time.
MAYES 42
M: Listen, this is a dry part of Texas right here. The
average rainfall here is only about 19 inches.
PG: Well, looks like you just got most of it.
M: We've got 9 inches since you've been here.
A: We were out for a couple of weeks and I missed most of
it but I know in the past three or four weeks it has rained
a heck of a lot.
M: It has rained more than it has rained all year long.
Last year was one of the most bountiful rain crops we have
had since I've been here.
A: There was one other question I had on sports, and of
course, being a teacher up at the high school I'm interested
in it, but I notice that back in earlier times, 1931, it
looks like the B team was called the Gorillas .
M: Yes, they don't have that any more, do they?
A: No . I was wondering how they got that name.
M: I don't know how they got that name. I'll swear I
don't. But boy they graduated from there sometime during
the season they'd move one up, you know.
A: From the Gorillas up to the Harvesters.
M: You know how many coaches Pampa had then?
A: Well, I think it had three, didn 't they.
M: Well , counting the coach of the Gorillas. But Pampa had
Otis Mitchell, a fellow by the name of Argus Fox, and they
coached football, basketball, baseball, and track, all four
of them.
A: Had a lot of spare time on their hands, didn't they?
M: That Otis Mitchell was quite an athlete.
MAYES 43
A: Oh, I bet he was.
M: You know, he's got Alzheimer's now. Isn't that awful?
PG: That's a bad thing. Would your wife be coming home
anytime soon from the beauty parlor?
M: I doubt it. Let's see •••
PG: It is after twelve. I was hoping I could get a picture
of both of you.
M: She may be. Well, even if she goes down to Senior
Citizens. She may go there and eat her lunch. She knows
all those people you know.
BG: Senior Citizens. How does she qualify for Senior
Citizens?
M: I've never eaten there. That's for old people.
PG: Oh, boy. Well you certainly have filled us in with
some wonderful details.
END OF SIDE 2. APPROXIMATELY 30 MINUTES.